A review by deadscreen
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior by Stefano Mancuso

3.0

As someone who has a MS in Horticultural Biology, I enjoyed a lot of the history and examples provided in this book. However, I found many of the "motives" ascribed to the plants or mechanisms in these examples difficult to swallow. After reading this book, I almost feel a better title would be "The Revolutionary Genius of Evolution: A New Understanding of How Natural Selection Has Overcome Selection Pressures Against Immovable Life Forms". I felt like the author went too far in implying that plants have any form of conscious choice in any of their "actions" and that anything other than chemistry and natural selection was at play here. That being said, I really enjoyed the chapters on architectural inspirations taken from plants, plants in space, and organization. It was very interesting to hear these perspectives, regardless of whether I agreed with them or not. Not an overly difficult read, even if you don't have a background in plant science.