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
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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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: Great Idea, Horrible Result
Comment: Mr Pollan had a great idea for a book--evolution of 4 different species of well know plants from the plant's perspective as influenced by humans. There's about 30 pages of good information to this end. The rest is horribly long and painful unrelated tangents that he clearly enjoys writing about, but have absolutely nothing to do with the subject. For instance, in covering apples he talks for freggen ever about John Chapaman, aka Johnny Appleseed. Who cares about Appleseed's sexual frustrations with a potential 10 year old bride??? Who cares about his love of sleeping in hollowed out logs, or on the snow if sleeping in the log would disturb some insects??? If you're ridiculously bored and don't mind reading about random garbage you might like this book. If you're looking for enlightenment on this subject or like a well executed book, don't even think about this one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Short, Sweet, Insightful
Comment: I was continuously amused and enlightened about many things in this book; suffice it to say I dog-eared quite a few pages as I wanted to go back to re-read certain passages for the perspective, perhaps for the phrasing, or for the knowledge.
Humans certainly have the desire and the ability to bend nature, but a good lesson learned in this book is to let nature be itself, even as you make it do your bidding!
Customer Rating:
Summary: The best
Comment: In style and substance this is one of the best books I've read in recent years, as well as one of the most enjoyable. It also broadened my perspective in several areas. I highly recommend.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Coevolution of Human Cultures and Domesticated Plants.
Comment: In "The Botany of Desire", author and gardener Michael Pollan turns the tables on our view of domesticated species by presenting a would-be "plant's eye view of the world". His premise is that humans may have a more reciprocal relationship with domesticated plants than we like to believe. Perhaps the plants use us to propagate themselves as we use them to satisfy our desires. To explore this idea, Pollan recounts the horticultural histories and the human desires that created them for 4 domesticated plant species: the apple, which satisfies our desire for sweetness, the tulip, cultivated for its beauty, marijuana, for intoxication, and the potato, which gives us control. A fruit, a flower, a drug, and a staple food.
Pollan dedicates a section of the book to each of the 4 plants. The histories of the species are not comprehensive but focus on key events which affected its "artificial selection" and made the plants what they are today. For example, the history of the apple focuses on the introduction of seedlings onto the American frontier by Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman in the early 19th century, spawning an explosion of edible species from what were originally trees planted to make applejack. The section on the tulip predictably talks about "Tulipmania" in 1630s Holland, usually cited as the first "bubble" of the modern global economy, but also addresses the "Tulip Era" in Constantinople, funny and failed attempts to make the tulip useful, and the unending quest for a black tulip.
Likewise, the section on marijuana focuses on the tremendous advances in horticulture spawned by the War on Drugs that forced growers indoors in the 1980s. The discussion of the potato is particularly timely, as it talks about the genetically modified NewLeaf potato, which includes genes from Bt bacterium whose toxin is lethal to the Colorado potato beetle. This potato is designed to rescue the agricultural industry from its toxic and unsustainable strategy of pesticides and fertilizers. It's also designed to prolong the viability of monoculture, around which much of the agricultural industry in built but which is historically and currently problematic.
An interesting aspect of the evolution of these domesticated species is that three of four of them are cloned species, not planted from seeds or allowed to reproduce sexually. They're in trouble for lack of genetic diversity. They've been over-domesticated. So we shall see if Michael Pollan's thesis that the plants have put us in their service as much as we have them holds up. It seems we've made them quite vulnerable. But that premise provides an interesting entry into the subject of horticulture. Michael Pollan is opinionated, and everyone will not agree with his view of marijuana or NewLeaf potatoes, but I do think readers will see his point. "The Botany of Desire" is thought-provoking and timely.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A fast read, well written, fascinating!
Comment: The connections between plants and people are fascinating. Michael Pollan writes so well, I was pulled through the book. This is a view of the web of life that I haven't seen before. Highly recommended. Another book I enjoyed some time back (not by Pollan) is "Biomimicry".
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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
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World is a 2001 nonfiction book by journalist Michael Pollan. This work explores the nature of domesticated plants from the dual ...
Powell's Books - The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World ...
In 1637, one Dutchman paid as much for a single tulip bulb as the going price of a town house in Amsterdam. Three and a half centuries later, Amsterdam is once again the mecca for ...
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan - eBook - Random House
The Botany of Desire Written by Michael Pollan Format: eBook ISBN: 9781588360083 Our Price: $9.95
Online NewsHour: Botany of Desire -- June 29, 2001
Author Michael Pollan talks about his new book, "The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World."
The Botany of Desire, A Plant's-Eye View of the World
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 ...
The Botany of Desire: A Plants-Eye View of the World
1 edition from Random House Inc (May 1, 2001); titled "The Botany of Desire: A Plant'S-Eye View of the World"
Borders - Feature - The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the ...
Excerpt The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World. By Michael Pollan. Chapter 1 Desire: Sweetness Plant: The Apple (Malus domestica) If you happened to find yourself on ...
Book: The Botany of Desire — A Plant's-Eye View of the World by ...
The Botany of Desire A Plant’s-Eye View of the World Overview From the publisher. In 1637, one Dutchman paid as much for a single tulip bulb as the going price of a town house in ...
Lone Star College Online Library Catalog
You're searching: Lone Star, Harris County Public, and ... The botany of desire: a plant 's eye view of the world / Michael Pollan. by Pollan, Michael
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan - eBook - Random House
The Botany of Desire A Plant's-Eye View of the World Written by Michael Pollan. Category: Nature - Plants; Gardening; Format: eBook; On Sale: June 12, 2001; Price: $9.95; ISBN: 978-1-58836-008-3 (1 ...