The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
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Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Written By: Michael Pollan
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.45
EAN: 9780375760396
Feature: ISBN13: 9780375760396
ISBN: 0375760393
Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: 2002-05-28
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Release Date: 2002-05-28
Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Features
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ISBN13: 9780375760396
Condition: New
Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
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Editorial Reviews for The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
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Every schoolchild 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. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?
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Consumer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: This book personifies plants and makes all kinds of false statements
Comment: Plants don't make an evolutionary decision to throw their lot in with humans. Evolution is about the random mutations that occur and the survival of the fittest. This tries to pass itself off as science but what it really does is mislead people into believing that the result was planned.
True that it does encourage you to see things from a different angle, but it doesn't make any valid points in the direction of how plants "plan" their future....
Customer Rating:
Summary: nice story but some facts are fiction!
Comment: I'm reluctantly writing this review since, although I'm about to criticize the book/video in question for failing on accuracy/fact, I did enjoy the documentary.
I should make it clear now that I actually haven't read the book, but rather I've watched the documentary of the same name by the same author, which I doubt has much difference in wording and should have identical facts as well as conclusions.
Now to my point:
Although I enjoyed the doco(book?) and agreed with most of its "facts", when it came to discussing Cannabis I was appalled.
An interview with a semi-legal (obviously experienced) cannabis grower discussing cannabis evolution doesn't sound like a great idea to start with, but when that ignoramous's comments are repeated and backed up by other more qualified persons that should know better it becomes dissapointing to say the least.
The topic I'm referring to is the evolutionary change in cannabis of an increase in resin content, which is suggested in the doco to be due to the resins ability to capture pollen and hence fertilize the plant.
Well in fact ALL the pollen captured/trapped by cannabis resin (or any other plants resin to) is totally unable fertilize that plants stigma (female reproductive parts) and hence in any way aid that plants reproductive success.
This is totally logical and 100% successful in demonstration too.
Sadly it seems that an illogical and incorrect theory was put forawrd to explain a plant feature (external resin) who's function is still under debate in the scientifc community (probably more likely a natural fly-paper/bug-killer).
Personally I think it's better not to put forward a theory for the evolution of the sturctural function of a species if that theory's not even logically possible!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Strange
Comment: This book is well written but a bit strange. Mr. Pollen bases his premise that plants manipulate mankind into shaping their future because of man's 4 desires. My son had to read it for college, so I picked it up. It is quite a "green" book with lots of progressive ideas.
Customer Rating:
Summary: informative but repetitive
Comment: Wonderful book to sit down to from time to time and garner a deeper understanding of the history behind the Apple, Tulip, Cannibas and Potato -- it was like finding out that some of our most 'mundane' plants are actually remarkable. The premise behind the book intrigues too -- that plants can attract or manipulate humans just like hummingbirds or bees. What I felt was the downside to the book was the author's regular repetition of certain assertions, even some of the same stories. As some of the chapters dragged on, I felt like he was saying the same things over and over again, just with different words and a different anecdote. What he said in 300 pages could probably have been said in 200 ... maybe less. Looks like he could have used a stronger editor.
Customer Rating:
Summary: needs to be a bit more careful...
Comment: Pollan's intricate look at our quest for sweetness, intoxication, beauty and practicality through plants lends us a wealth of information on our relationship with nature. Investigation through experiment, interviews and research reveals much of the unexpected but needed information- on current practices in mainstream agriculture for example. The style he presents his topics doesn't exactly fulfill the opinions which he eventually reaches at the conclusion of the chapter- such as that intoxication might bring us in closer communion to nature or that its better and safer to go with bio-diversity in raising a food supply (yet he is willing to serve genetically altered potato salad). In Pollan's case, there seems to be transparency of a comedy of errors, a looseness of respect that show up immediately in the first chapter on apples. He is pretty sure that all apple trees are now native to America or should be labeled so because of their rapid acculturation and revolutionary adaptability. (So, if a plant likes American soil it should be called native?) He's also positive that the healthy reputation of apples was not known or talked about until the beginning of the early 20th century as a PR campaign to boost the validity of apple consumption (to counter prohibitionist movement aimed at hard cider) As Ralph Austen noted (among others) that:
"it will beggar a physitian to live where cider and perry are of general use" Mr. Austen wrote this in the year 1653.
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More Information on The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
The Botany of Desire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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