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The Botany of Desire

a Plant's Eye View of the World
Jul 13, 2016Ethan_Annis rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Pollan’s premise in The Botany of Desire: a plant’s eye view of the world is that domesticated plants and humans have coevolved in ways that often benefitted plants as much as humans. To explore this premise, Pollan looks at four plants: apples, tulips, cannabis and potatoes. With apples, Pollan looks at the history of sweetness and alcohol, in the form of cider. The section on tulips examines beauty, markets and bubbles using the setting of 17th century Holland, where at one point a house was traded for a tulip bulb. In the part about cannabis, Pollan explores the history of psychotropic drugs. Finally, in the section about potatoes, Pollan describes our relationship with food, pesticides and how food production is changing. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan greatly expands on this theme. One of the most fascinating aspects of The Botany of Desire are Pollan’s historical explanations of plants history. For example, Pollan’s vivid depiction of the potato famine in Ireland gave me an understanding of famines that I did not have before reading Pollan. Overall this is an extraordinary and engaging meditation on plants and humans.