Michael Pollan is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine as well as a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine. He is the author of two prizewinning books: Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education and A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder. Pollan lives in Connecticut with his wife and son.
In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan argues that the answer lies at the heart of the intimately reciprocal relationship between people and plants. In telling the stories of four familiar plant species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, Pollan illustrates how they evolved to satisfy humankinds’s most basic yearnings — and by doing so made themselves indispensable. For, just as we’ve benefited from these plants, the plants, in the grand co-evolutionary scheme that Pollan evokes so brilliantly, have done well by us. The sweetness of apples, for example, induced the early Americans to spread the species, giving the tree a whole new continent in which to blossom. So who is really domesticating whom?
Weaving fascinating anecdotes and accessible science into gorgeous prose, Pollan takes us on an absorbing journey that will change the way we think about our place in nature.
Amazon.com's Best of 2001
Working in his garden one day, Michael Pollan hit pay dirt in the form of an idea: do plants, he wondered, use humans as much as we use them? While the question is not entirely original, the way Pollan examines this complex coevolution by looking at the natural world from the perspective of plants is unique. The result is a fascinating and engaging look at the true nature of domestication.
In making his point, Pollan focuses on the relationship between humans and four specific plants: apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes. He uses the history of John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) to illustrate how both the apple's sweetness and its role in the production of alcoholic cider made it appealing to settlers moving west, thus greatly expanding the plant's range. He also explains how human manipulation of the plant has weakened it, so that "modern apples require more pesticide than any other food crop." The tulipomania of 17th-century Holland is a backdrop for his examination of the role the tulip's beauty played in wildly influencing human behavior to both the benefit and detriment of the plant (the markings that made the tulip so attractive to the Dutch were actually caused by a virus). His excellent discussion of the potato combines a history of the plant with a prime example of how biotechnology is changing our relationship to nature. As part of his research, Pollan visited the Monsanto company headquarters and planted some of their NewLeaf brand potatoes in his gardenseeds that had been genetically engineered to produce their own insecticide. Though they worked as advertised, he made some startling discoveries, primarily that the NewLeaf plants themselves are registered as a pesticide by the EPA and that federal law prohibits anyone from reaping more than one crop per seed packet. And in a interesting aside, he explains how a global desire for consistently perfect French fries contributes to both damaging monoculture and the genetic engineering necessary to support it.
Pollan has read widely on the subject and elegantly combines literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific references with engaging anecdotes, giving readers much to ponder while weeding their gardens. Shawn Carkonen
一 我超爱麦当劳的薯条:晶莹剔透,散发着迷人的香味,往嘴里轻轻一嚼……人生于是完满了。这就是柏拉图式的薯条啊,完美的艺术品! 怀着爱屋及乌的心情,我把目光转向了美国的爱达荷州,这里盛产马铃薯,每年向麦当劳提供成千上万吨优质的伯班克马铃薯(Burbank Potato)。由...
评分三本书一起写个感想 之所以放在这本书上,是因为森林生态学是专业书,而在此我不想说太多术语,虫师一直很受漫迷推崇,但却被认为没有理性构架,人们总是从美学角度去欣赏它。这本书是最合适我来抒发感慨,同时旁征博引的了。。 虽然也有人说译者给人感觉很不专业,序言写得煽...
评分原版看了一半,觉得读英文还是比较费力,然后借了译本,发现中文也很费力。。。对照着看完了,毕竟内容很有意思。对植物、人对自然的所谓改造都一些新的想法
评分先看这样一段话:“安德鲁韦尔把大麻描绘为一种‘活跃的安慰剂’,他认为大麻本身并没有创造而是触发了那种我们确定为‘高潮’的精神状态。这同样的精神状态,如果减去由麻醉品自身所带来的‘生理学上的喧闹’外,也能够由其他的方式来触发,比如冥思或者是有氧运动。” 我...
评分一个农业工作者的远方 第一部分:书评 终于他妈的读完了,在离我们的生物化学课结束还有5分钟的时候。本书的最后一个部分,我们的主角,一个叫做“卖壳儿·破锣”老头,被一个邪恶土豆打败了,被打得落花流水,神志不清,其幕后黑手是邪恶的孟山都!我擦!下课铃响了,我...
the marijuana chapter is quite interesting,somethin'bout the witch hahah
评分...对植物不是很感兴趣
评分i want to garden!!!
评分FYS: Evolution of Cheeseburger. Prof. Scott Boback
评分the marijuana chapter is quite interesting,somethin'bout the witch hahah
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