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Loading... The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World (2001)by Michael Pollan
lots of fun and learned a lot. good reader (  ) mahallett | Jun 16, 2013 |  If you don't garden already— you will want to by the end of this book. Recommended by Bernadette Vielbig  SFCC | Jun 4, 2013 | Pollan's best! cynrwiecko | May 11, 2013 | The author’s starting premise in The Botany of Desire has two fascinating parts. First, that plants benefit greatly from domestication, so our relationship with them could just as easily be viewed as them domesticating us. And second, that domesticated plants have evolved to meet some basic human desire, making plants of the past a great way to learn about what previous civilizations valued. The bulk of the book is devoted to stories of particular plants that illustrate this point. Although I expected more of a history of the plants in question (the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato), I very much enjoyed the collection of anecdotes presented instead. The Botany of Desire was definitely not what I expected or what I expect non-fiction in general to be like. The author isn’t especially objective and the history of the plants is anything but comprehensive. Despite those differences, this was one of the most enjoyable non-fiction books I’ve read all year. What the book most reminded me of was The Lives of a Cell, because a large part of the appeal was the author’s fascinating philosophical commentary on his personal observations. The writing was extremely well done; sometimes funny, often beautiful, and always enthusiastic. As I mentioned, this wasn’t at all the comprehensive history I expected. What the author did instead was much more entertaining. The anecdotes he shared were all fascinating or funny or both and the number of fun facts I found to write down was overwhelming. Unfortunately, there were some sex analogies to explain plant behavior and a very pro-marijuana tone that would prevent me from handing this to a very young reader. Otherwise, it’s easy to read and a great introduction to the wonder of the natural world. With that one caveat, I would recommend this book to anyone, because I think the interesting anecdotes about plants familiar to everyone give it an almost universal appeal. This review first published on Doing Dewey. ( ) DoingDewey | May 6, 2013 | Revisiting this ten years after my initial reading was fascinating, especially the potato & marijuana sections. I recall thinking that Pollan sounded a little unhinged when he was talking about Monsanto's evil campaign to eradicate small farmers and the inherent dangers in various manipulations of seeds & genetics by Monsanto. Ten years on, he sounds prescient and perhaps a bit conservative. There's been a huge pendulum swing with weed- when Pollan wrote this, the US was in one of its crazed drug-prosecution moments, sending people to the Big House for minuscule amounts of marijuana. Now, I drive by 3 or 4 medical cannabis dispensaries every day. I wonder, too, about the relative potencies of different strains of marijuana and the selective breeding that Pollan discusses here- I've never pursued this info, though I suppose it's available. I love his tone which is not folksy but is certainly collegial and warm. Stellar writing, delightful subject. I would love to see an updated version of this one. (  ) satyridae | Apr 5, 2013 |
 In other words, human desire shapes the plants that then shape human desire. In displaying for us, in his graceful and literate way, the intricacies of the mechanisms involved, Mr. Pollan shines a light on our own nature as well as on our implication in the natural world. It's an absorbing subject, and Pollan, like his hero, brings a clutch of quirky talents to the task of exploring it. He has a wide-ranging intellect, an eager grasp of evolutionary biology and a subversive streak that helps him root out some wonderfully counterintuitive points. His prose both shimmers and snaps, and he has a knack for finding perfect quotes in the oddest places (George Eliot is somehow made to speak for the sense-attenuating value of a good high). Best of all, Pollan really loves plants.
References to this work on external resources.
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In making his point, Pollan focuses on the relationship between humans and four specific plants: apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes. He uses the history of John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) to illustrate how both the apple's sweetness and its role in the production of alcoholic cider made it appealing to settlers moving west, thus greatly expanding the plant's range. He also explains how human manipulation of the plant has weakened it, so that "modern apples require more pesticide than any other food crop." The tulipomania of 17th-century Holland is a backdrop for his examination of the role the tulip's beauty played in wildly influencing human behavior to both the benefit and detriment of the plant (the markings that made the tulip so attractive to the Dutch were actually caused by a virus). His excellent discussion of the potato combines a history of the plant with a prime example of how biotechnology is changing our relationship to nature. As part of his research, Pollan visited the Monsanto company headquarters and planted some of their NewLeaf brand potatoes in his garden--seeds that had been genetically engineered to produce their own insecticide. Though they worked as advertised, he made some startling discoveries, primarily that the NewLeaf plants themselves are registered as a pesticide by the EPA and that federal law prohibits anyone from reaping more than one crop per seed packet. And in a interesting aside, he explains how a global desire for consistently perfect French fries contributes to both damaging monoculture and the genetic engineering necessary to support it.
Pollan has read widely on the subject and elegantly combines literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific references with engaging anecdotes, giving readers much to ponder while weeding their gardens. --Shawn Carkonen
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:57:24 -0500)
Focusing on the human relationship with plants, the author of Second nature uses botany to explore four basic human desires, sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control, through portraits of four plants that embody them, the apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato. Every school child learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers; the bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers' genes far and wide. In The botany of desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. In telling the stories of four familiar species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind's most basic yearnings. And just as we've benefited from these plants, the plants have done well by us. So who is really domesticating whom?… (more)
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