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A review by dapplezee
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
5.0
I picked up The Botany of Desire at the library following txkimmers's recommendation. This is an incredibly cool set of four essays on plants and people: apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes.
Pollan does a great job turning around our usual view of "domesticated" plants. We usually see ourselves manipulating plants to serve our needs, making the plant just another tool. As he points out, plants aren't just hapless bystanders here. They have their own agenda, to reproduce!, and every plant that finds a way to get humans to help it along is using us, too.
There's some great stories here. I had no idea Johnny Appleseed was such a character, and so totally different from the image that our grade-school books promote. The exploration of Monsanto's genetically engineered potato -- how they make them, how they're grown, why they're attractive to the US market -- was both creepy and cool. Do I really want to be eating these? And how will I even know?
Pollan does a great job turning around our usual view of "domesticated" plants. We usually see ourselves manipulating plants to serve our needs, making the plant just another tool. As he points out, plants aren't just hapless bystanders here. They have their own agenda, to reproduce!, and every plant that finds a way to get humans to help it along is using us, too.
There's some great stories here. I had no idea Johnny Appleseed was such a character, and so totally different from the image that our grade-school books promote. The exploration of Monsanto's genetically engineered potato -- how they make them, how they're grown, why they're attractive to the US market -- was both creepy and cool. Do I really want to be eating these? And how will I even know?