The Botany of Desire: Summary and book reviews of The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, plus links to an excerpt from The Botany of Desire and a biography of Michael Pollan.
The Botany of Desire
by Michael Pollan
Hardcover: May 2001,
256 pages.
Paperback: May 2002,
304 pages.
In 1637, one Dutchman paid as much for a single tulip bulb as the going price of a town house in Amsterdam. Three and a half centuries later, Amsterdam is once again the mecca for people who care passionately about one particular plant -- though this time the obsessions revolves around the intoxicating effects of marijuana rather than the visual beauty of the tulip. How could flowers, of all things, become such objects of desire that they can drive men to financial ruin?
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.
New York Times Book Review - Burkhard Bilger
[Pollan] has a wide-ranging intellect, an eager grasp of evolutionary biology and a subversive streak that helps him root out some wonderfully counterintuitive points. His prose both shimmers and snaps, and he has a knack for finding perfect quotes in the oddest places (George Eliot is somehow made to speak for the sense-attenuating value of a good high). Best of all, Pollan really loves plants. His first book described his education as a gardener, and that hands-and-knees experience animates every one of his descriptions -- whether of hydroponic marijuana (''I don't think I've ever seen plants that looked more enthusiastic'') or of roses (''flung open and ravishing in Elizabethan times, obligingly buttoned . . . up and turned prim for the Victorians.'').
Library Journal
[Pollan] weaves disparate threads from personal, scientific, literary, historical, and philosophical sources into an intriguing and somehow coherent narrative.
Publishers Weekly
Erudite, engaging and highly original, journalist Pollan's fascinating account of four everyday plants and their coevolution with human society challenges traditional views about humans and nature.
William Cronon, editor of Uncommon Ground Rethinking the Human Place in Nature No one else writes about the human environment quite like Michael Pollan we can be grateful indeed that one of our wittiest writers about nature is also one of our wisest. In The Botany of Desire, Pollan makes a persuasive case that the plants we might be tempted to see as having been most domesticated by humanity are in fact also those that have been most effective in domesticating us. It is a stunning insight, and no one will come away from this book without having their ideas of nature stretched and challenged.
Alice Waters
Michael Pollan is a sensualist and a wonderful, funny storyteller. He is so engaging that his profound environmental messages are effortlessly communicated. He makes you fall in love with Nature.
Richard Ford
I find this book to be inspirational -- curiosity and gentleness of spirit forming genius.
Bill McKibben, author of Long Distance and The End of Nature
This book is as crisp as an October apple, as juicy as an August tomato, as long-awaited as the first flower of spring,. Michael Pollan has conceived a new and powerful understanding of who we are, and how we stand in relation to everything else--and the stories he tells to prove the point make the world seem a richer place.
Betty Fussell, author of My Kitchen Wars
Anyone who has ever made personal contact with an apple, spud, tulip, or marijuana bud should read this book and be astonished at the eternal tango of men and plants, choreographed with wit, daring, and humanity by this botanist of desire who knows equally the power of plants and of words.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Kim I found this book fascinating I have to admit I'm truly dismayed by some of the other reviews of this book posted here at Bookbrowse. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, I think perhaps Botany of Desire requires a certain curiosity about that world that many of us... Read More
Rated of 5
by Lynn G. Inspriation for the stoned My class had to read this book for our English Comp 101 course. out of 26 students 23 of us found that this book was very hard to follow, a good book to read if you wish to fall asleep. Not only does Pollan jump from subject to subject and then... Read More
Rated of 5
by higher ape clean out your skull pollan The book was stupid dry boring filled with dumb and hopelessly random information that does not flow at all. Not only that but most of the information was pointless, idiotic conclusions were drawn from it. It felt like I was poring lava in my... Read More
Rated of 5
by StudentX Imbecile This guy cant write! I can't even iagine who his audience is suposed to be. Sounds like he's just talking to him self a lot. The book is boring, filled with wrong info and mostly his view of the world not the plants! The only reason it is a best... Read More
Rated of 5
by Tanya
I think the book was very informative - it's quite interesting to see how plants have played a crucial hand in the development of culture as we know it and how they were manipulated to create the varieties of species we see in gardens and markets... Read More
Rated of 5
by Josh
Great book with excellent points. Very well written and easy to follow, especially for a student.
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Library Journal
William Cronon, editor of Uncommon Ground Rethinking the Human Place in Nature
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