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Summary: A great book...
Review: In The Botany of Desire Michael Pollan traces the history of apples, tulips, marijuana, and the potato. It is a reminder that we have a great effect on the world around us. He explains how our desires (for such things as sweetness, beauty, nutrition, or simply to get high) can change the fate of other organisms and their success or failure rests literally in our hands. It is a great lesson in evolution, the organisms with the most desireable characteristics will survive to have offspring.
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Summary: Fabulous....
Review: Read this book and you may never eat a conventionally grown potato again. I know I won't. If I hadn't been a dedicated organic gardener for over 40 years, I would become one after reading THE BOTANY OF DESIRE. I find it incredibly puzzling that more people haven't bitten the organic bullet. I truly believe a diet of conventionally grown food can shorten your life and bring on all sorts of aches, pains, and illnesses you might not otherwise suffer. Organic gardening works and the stuff you grow is better for you. If you can't grow it, for goodness sakes, hustle on down to your closest Whole Foods store and buy it. Organic food may be more expensive than conventional foods, but in the long run you will save on medical bills. Michael Pollen's book is simply the best set of gardening essays I've read in a long while, maybe ever. And that's saying a lot because I am a big fan of gardening books (I've reviewed over 100 of them for Amazon). I haven't read something so enjoyable since Henry Mitchell's columns and books. It's not often a book of garden essays can make you laugh (misadventures with Mary Jane), make you cry (one million Irish dead of starvation), make you angry (one million Irish dead), and make you smile (is there any tulip so lovely as 'The Queen of the Night?' Pollan covers four plants, Apples, Tulips, Marijuana, and Potatoes. His first chapter on apples, disabused me of all my notions about Johnny Appleseed. I had read Anna Pavord's book THE TULIP, so the tulip section of Pollan's book was the least interesting for me, although he added some interesting anecdotal information. The best section of this book as far as I am concerned is the chapter on Marijuana. My husband is a substance abuse counselor and I recommended the chapter to him. It could have been titled, "Everything you ever wanted to know about Marijuana that they didn't tell you in medical school or criminology class." If you haven't yet decided the U.S. government officials who devised the war on drugs are nuts, read this chapter and you will become convinced. Drug war indeed!!! Didn't we learn anything with Al Capone?? The section on the potato plant is downright scary. Pollan's adventures with Monsanto are illuminating. Once again, the feds come out as the dumb bunnies. Or, maybe it's the elected officials and their appointees who won't let the EPA and USDA do it's job. The material on evolution in this section nicely complements Steve Jones' DARWIN'S GHOST. Monsanto is in the process of obtaining patents on natural substances and evolutionary processes that will affect the whole food chain-and the CEO says "trust me". Yeah, right. Do yourself a favor, during the cold weather ahead. Curl up in an easy chair with a cup of tea and read this book. Whether you garden or not, you will love it.
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Summary: Do not be fooled by the title
Review: Despite the title, this book contains very little botany and almost everything is a history of animals' relationship with plants and how humans affected certain plants rather than the other way around. The text focuses on four plants (apple trees, tulips, marijuana plants, and potatoes) which gives the author little opportunity to explore the affect of plants on the rest of the world. I would have preferred the author turned the subject around to show major ways that plants affect the world with many different plant examples for each effect. The author mostly rambles through loosely related anecdotes that stand on their own and might do better as short stories in magazines or the Sunday edition of the paper. His central premise---that plants purposedly affect the world---is almost completely abandoned after a few pages. Indeed, most of the stories show man's breeding of plants for specific characteristics rather than the other way around. The anecdotes are more about the author's activities while researching the book than the topic itself, and he comes across as a rube most of the time. Although that may appeal to some readers, I felt misled by the advertising and title. Some of the histories are interesting, but are poorly supported which creates the tone of a high school book report rather than a story written by someone with a command of the subject. The reader would be better off reading separate books on the history of each of the four plants. A good editor could cut two-thirds of this book and still keep all of the good stuff, although he would change the title to not mislead the reader. In all, the premise is a wonderful idea, but the book is poorly executed.
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Summary: Mischaracterized, but fun
Review: "Botany of Desire" purports to deliver a plant's eye view (if such a thing is possible) of natural and artificial selection. That advertising induced me to buy the book. But, although the book starts off in that direction, it quickly moves off down a side path and never returns to the main drag. Not only does it abandon this central theme, it seems to have no theme at all. Other than the fact that the subject of the four sections are all plants and how we humans have made use of them, no common thread ties the book together. That's not a fatal flaw, however, because each story stands nicely on its own, and delivers interesting information in a pleasant, readable fashion. So I can recommend the book, but not on the grounds that it really says much about the co-evolution of plants and animals. I can recommend it because I found Pollan's writing to be enjoyable and informative. I am, however, still looking for a book on plant/human co-evolution.
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Summary: Interesting for everyone - not just gardeners
Review: Honestly, I'm not sure why I read this book. I'm not a gardener and, really, I couldn't care less about botany and biology. Yet I'm not regretting reading it. This was one of the most intriguing reads I've had in awhile. The basic thesis, that plants use humans just as much as humans use plants, is intriguing to everyone, including the layman. But what makes it so great is the extra touches by Pollan. The pages on Johnny Appleseed as the Dionysus of American Myth was worth the price of the book alone. Then there's also the history of the tulip trade, the history of cannabis use in western civiliation, and the overview of current trends in genetically modified foods (specifically potaoes). This book is a perfect example of 'something for everyone.' Pollan does not limit himself to simply proving his thesis (though he does this admirably). Instead, he treats his subject with a loving tenderness, examining all aspects of it to creat a coherent picture of the whole. Highly Recommended.
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Summary: A fine read and not a heavy one
Review: "The Botany of Desire" is a engaging, readable biography of our relationships to four plants: the tulip, the potato, the apple, and cannabis. I bought this book to read for pleasure on a friend's recommendation ( I'm a beginning gardender).I found the book entertaining and well-researched (the chapters on the apple and on pot are the best, because their stories are less familiar). But it's also a light, or "lite" book, like reading four magazine articles, and you might not want something so slight. I did find myself wishing it were a little denser, more political (especially in the pot chapter), and a little more reflective or brainy.
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Summary: Great Book for Slow Times...
Review: I love to read this book on the can!
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Summary: We are all part of the web
Review: So often cultural histories are written from the point of view of humans taking control of their world and shaping it as desired. But Pollen looks at some of our cultural history and turns it on its head, where we are but pawns to what nature and plants decide to do. We are all connected in a web of human needs and desires, with fauna's desire to survive and thrive. It may not be a "plant's eye view" but it makes them much more than passive inhabitants of the Earth. Through a series of 4 essays, Pollen looks at how plants mesh with our needs (potato) and our desires (hemp) and other stops in between. What he does is to successfully, and in clear writing, examine the symbiotic relationship that inhabits our world. Of course I say that and the first thought in a lot of minds is a boring botany or biology lecture. This book is far from it - it is friendly and accessible. The author comes from the point of view of a participant, interlacing the observations with his own experiences as a gardener. It's an enjoyable read to take out into the back yard, kick back under a tree and let yourself go. It may make you look at the plants around you in a slightly different light.
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Summary: A quartette of posies
Review: Let's get the one fault out of the way quickly. This book isn't "a plant's-eye view of the world." It could be better subtitled "A Botanical Biography." No matter. This well-researched and wonderfully written group of essays examines the world of four mundane plants, the apple, tulip, hemp and potatoe. Pollan describes how each have played major roles in human affairs. In America, "Johnny Appleseed" is a giant figure in the mythology of the Ohio Valley. Pollan describes the life of his real-life counterpart, John Chapman. Apart from repeats of the Disney film of this character, it would be interesting to know how many remember the migratory apple orchardist of the early 19th Century today. In reviving Chapman's memory [I'd never heard of him - there is no Canadian counterpart.], Pollan takes us on a well-developed history of this valuable fruit. An emigrant from ancient Kazakhstan, it may have been brought to the West along the famous silk road, according to Pollan. Along with the silk came the process of grafting, invented by the Chinese. Pollan's reminds us that an apple's taste, which we usually consider a human reaction, was attractive to many animals, leading to its wide propagation.
Pollan moves from fruit to flower. The tulip, that quintessential symbol of the Netherlands, was the first flower to influence major economic activity. He describes the frantic "tulipomania" that swept that country in the 17th Century. Beautiful flowers are desired by most people, but to insects, Pollan notes, it means pollen and nectar. Flowers need insects to ensure pollination - no insects, no more flowers. Pollan suggests our own view of "beauty" derives from these evolutionary roots. Pollan's choice of hemp, in its use as marijuana, will have raised a few eyebrows. As a symbol of "intoxication," he opens the essay with a description of plant toxins. Toxins, Pollan reminds us, are capable of rendering the victim dead, or at least incapacitated. Since plants and animals have a history of coevolution, deadly toxins are often counterproductive. Besides, making them ties up much of the plant's resources. Evolution led many plants to produce toxins that merely confuse or disable the predator. Enter the human. Plant chemistry is the basis of nearly all pharmaceuticals. Pollan notes the properties of nicotine and caffeine on animals. Marijuana's effects, as he notes, have a potential that goes beyond body chemistry. His account of "mary jane" plants behind his barn is easily the most
entertaining episode in the book. Returning to edible [for humans] plants, Pollan re-introduces us to the potato - often overlooked, but of immense value. He views the potato as the ideal symbol for the rise of agriculture. "Agriculture is, by its very nature, brutally reductive, simplifying nature's incredibly complexity so something humanly manageable." This simplification has made the crop potato susceptible to blights, as the Irish learned to their dismay. Pollan, a consummate gardener, examines the possibilities of the Monsanto genetically-engineered NewLeaf potato. It has its own insecticide locked in its DNA. The experiment leads him to visit potato farmers for some enlightening exchanges of ideas and opinion.
This book seizes your attention from the first pager. Pollan's polished style and easy wit holds your interest throughout. Whether you've ever gardened for fruits, vegetables or flowers, you will be captivated by these offerings. It's a difficult book to put down, and taking it up again may offer missed rewards later.
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Summary: Through a Potato's Eyes
Review: Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire is a collection of four essays on four different plants, each representing a desire that humans have: apples (sweetness), tulips (beauty), marijuana (intoxication), and potatoes (control). Pollan's writing is clear and purposeful, full of the kind of rampant speculation that would get a real scientist in trouble (or labeled as a "pop scientist" as Carl Sagan was), but perfect for the gardener-turned-investigator that Pollan is. In high school, we learn that plots boil down to basic structures, one of them being human vs. nature. Pollan attempts to flip that and write a book that is nature vs. humans by focusing on how the plants benefit from the years of selection by humans. Although the book is obstensibly about the plants, Pollan introduces you to a number of people who provide both the assistance and the foils for his natural protagonists, like: Johnny Appleseed (a real figure) and Bill Jones (who is more interested in a St. Appleseed); Monsanto, their captive customers, and the off-the-grid organic farmer Mike Heath; Bryan R., a breeder and grower of marijuana in Amsterdam, who is both frightened and proud of his patch of [marijuana]; and Dr. Pauw, who owned all but one of the most desired tulips during the mania that hit Holland. The style of the book resembles that of John McPhee, partly because of its four-essay structure, but also in the short, broken sections that flit back-and-forth in time, place and thought. Pollan, unlike McPhee, has a conclusion to draw from his subject, though, and that is the need to support biodiversity and his fear of monoculture--be it a natural one like the reliance on the "lumper" potato in Ireland that led to the Great Potato Famine or the artificial one of human culture, where people show a range of interest on many things, not just the tulip (or dot.com) of the moment. Reading between the lines, one can celebrate not only the wonder of nature but also fear the danger of hubris in thinking that we are separate from that nature, that we are not as changed by it as we change it. In these days of global warming and other environmental pressures, it's a lesson we would all do well to heed.
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