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A review by mantaman0a
The Nation of Plants by Stefano Mancuso
1.0
I get that this is supposed to be a Whimsical Exercise, but frankly it doesn't say anything very new, in any way that is particularly imaginative.
And i get that the author is trying to write about plants in some sort of accessible way, but the kind of 'arguments' he's trying to make for his herbaceous "manifesto" sound painfully contrived and shoehorned (eg when he's talking about how special the "phylogenetic plasticity" of plants is). Excuse me for being part of the unwashed masses you're writing for, but don't other organisms shrink and grow too, arent there instances of island dwarfism and gigantism over time? Then there's that little incoherent chapter about plants migrating and knowing no borders, which i dont know was meant to say what. Just who is this book written for??!?!
Finally, for a text that seems torn between jargon and accessibility, science and society/history, it's jarring that the writer has dedicated virtually no thought to his titular use of "nation", a word that emerged in very specific historical and geographical contexts. (For that matter, i still don't really know whats so "radical" about this "manifesto" either)
The cover is quite pretty and it's only 150 pages, sprinkled with a few fun facts. Going by his bio i'm sure this author writes more informed and detailed texts elsewhere.
But for me this book goes into that growing bin of vacuous, vapid "eco-lit" that make you go "trees died for this??" after you've gone thru the trouble of reading them. 99.6% of the time "AnTHRop0ceNe" almost inevitably get stuffed somewhere into such texts, and you come away realising you didnt really know what the hell the writer is actually Whimsically looping and looping on about.
Don't let any more trees die for this kind of writing. Rumination culminating in scatology should be saved for ruminants like cows.
I think you can find books about plants elsewhere.
And i get that the author is trying to write about plants in some sort of accessible way, but the kind of 'arguments' he's trying to make for his herbaceous "manifesto" sound painfully contrived and shoehorned (eg when he's talking about how special the "phylogenetic plasticity" of plants is). Excuse me for being part of the unwashed masses you're writing for, but don't other organisms shrink and grow too, arent there instances of island dwarfism and gigantism over time? Then there's that little incoherent chapter about plants migrating and knowing no borders, which i dont know was meant to say what. Just who is this book written for??!?!
Finally, for a text that seems torn between jargon and accessibility, science and society/history, it's jarring that the writer has dedicated virtually no thought to his titular use of "nation", a word that emerged in very specific historical and geographical contexts. (For that matter, i still don't really know whats so "radical" about this "manifesto" either)
The cover is quite pretty and it's only 150 pages, sprinkled with a few fun facts. Going by his bio i'm sure this author writes more informed and detailed texts elsewhere.
But for me this book goes into that growing bin of vacuous, vapid "eco-lit" that make you go "trees died for this??" after you've gone thru the trouble of reading them. 99.6% of the time "AnTHRop0ceNe" almost inevitably get stuffed somewhere into such texts, and you come away realising you didnt really know what the hell the writer is actually Whimsically looping and looping on about.
Don't let any more trees die for this kind of writing. Rumination culminating in scatology should be saved for ruminants like cows.
I think you can find books about plants elsewhere.