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The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

Michael Pollan (Goodreads Author)

4.05 · Rating details · 49,694 ratings · 3,415 reviews

Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fu ...more

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Kindle Edition, 304 pages

Published June 12th 2001 by Random House (first published May 8th 2001)

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Jan 25, 2012 Jason Koivu rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: beer-wine-spirits, non-fiction, food

I love books that open my eyes, teach me something, and even go so far as to re-educate me on the fallacies foisted upon me by ill-informed elementary school teachers. To that last end, I found the chapter on Johnny Appleseed very enlightening as well as highly entertaining.

Michael Pollan is more humorous and, let's just say, more adventurous than one might expect from a journalist/botanist (see his passages on hallucinogenic plants.) I appreciate his willingness to "go first" in the same way I ...more

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Jun 09, 2015 Carmen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Non-Fiction Fans, Gardeners

Shelves: traditionally-published, he-says, published2001, non-fiction, american-author

All those plants care about is what every being cares about on the most basic genetic level: making more copies of itself...

Did I choose to plant these potatoes, or did the potato make me do it?...

All these plants, which I'd always regarded as the objects of my desire, were also, I realized, subjects, acting on me, getting me to do things for them they couldn't do for themselves.

Pollan posits that plants are clever little buggers who have tricked and enslaved the human race into doing their bidd ...more

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Aug 15, 2007 Emily rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Okay, okay, books by Michael Pollan are clearly a fad right now, but I have bought into it whole-heartedly. He is an amazing, amazing writer: he makes me want to plant a garden, to tour his garden (his bedroom? what?), to only eat organic food, and to find out the story and origin of every morsel of food I put in my body. But he does it in a way that isn't overly preachy or agenda-driven. Instead, he lets you get what he is saying while at the same time telling an engaging, well-researched story ...more

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Feb 23, 2017 Margitte rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, nonfiction, 2017-read

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan introduces the possibility to the reader that plants are using insects, animals and humans to ensure their own survival. An interesting book about the symbiosis between all living organism and how Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory of natural selection is happening.

In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He mast

...more

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Nov 13, 2008 Trevor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: evolution, science, psychology, social-theory, food

In East Asian cultures – according to my increasingly Japanese daughters – the number four brings bad luck. This is because it sounds a bit like the word for death. Clearly the number four has no such associations for Michael Pollan. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is based around four meals and this one is based around four plants. I’ve done more than just enjoy these two books, they have completely enchanted me whilst also informing me and keeping me greatly amused.

Now, desire sounds like a strong word In East Asian cultures – according to my increasingly Japanese daughters – the number four brings bad luck. This is because it sounds a bit like the word for death. Clearly the number four has no such associations for Michael Pollan. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is based around four meals and this one is based around four plants. I’ve done more than just enjoy these two books, they have completely enchanted me whilst also informing me and keeping me greatly amused.

Now, desire sounds like a strong word to use about botany. There is, of course, that Frank Zappa song Call Any Vegetable and it will respond to you – I think this is also the song which ends with the memorable line, “O what a pumpkin!”

Now that isn’t quite the desire Pollan is talking about here. His four plants are: the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato. As a one time Irishman I have no problem with the idea that the potato might make the list of plants of desire, but I can see that others might struggle most with that one being included.

This book is based on the idea that plants use us as much as we use them – and the plants best able to meet our desires are the plants we help most to spread about the world. So much so that we tend to make monocultures of those plants that best match our desires – something that is arguably as much a problem for the plants as it is a boon for them.

Do you know when you sort of know the story to something, even if you don’t quite know the details? I had that kind of relationship with the story of Johnny Appleseed (aka John Chapman). While I had some notion of him going around frontier America planting apple seeds (and ten points for promoting dental health) he was never really going to cut it beside, say, Daniel Boone (what a dream come-er-true-er was he!). Little did I know that rather than being a man dedicated to the random distribution of apple seeds, he actually sold apple trees to pioneers (when not considering matrimony with stray 10 year olds). Pioneers were keen to buy the said apple trees not due to the dearth of doctors being kept away by all those apples being eaten, but rather the equally troubling shortage of bartenders. Apples being as good a way as any to make a pleasant alcoholic drink – and one that wasn’t complained about in the Bible.

It is here that Pollan develops one of his major metaphors – borrowed from Nietzsche (that most popular of masturbatory German philosophers) of the dichotomy between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. I’ve generally found this to be one of the more lucid and intelligent things Nietzsche ever said and so wasn’t disappointed that so much time was devoted to this idea in this book. Basically, Apollo was the god of order and light, Dionysus the god of wine and orgies. Our obsession with growing the same potato all over the world to make the perfect McDonalds fry is symbolic of the Apollonian desire – Johnny Appleseed growing apple trees from seed and thereby getting a vast number of genetically different trees symbolic of the Dionysian.

This central tension forms a large part of the basis of the book. It proves an interesting thing to say about Tulips too, and obviously also of marijuana. I guess it is possible that if Dionysus was with us today he might well be a pot head. The stuff about marijuana is very interesting. Particularly the fact that it has become about 10 times more potent over the years and that this increase in potency is directly attributable to the ‘war on drugs’. Pollan makes an interesting case for the idea that if the US government hadn’t spent billions of dollars imprisoning its citizens and fighting a war it could never win, pot would still be coming into the States from Mexico and would not have been bred up to being the super drug it is today. Pollan says that his initial reaction to smoking pot was much the same as mine has always been. That its main effects seemed to be to make me feel paranoid and stupid. Having been brought up in the loony left I really didn’t need chemistry to help me be paranoid, or stupid, for that matter. Apparently, this is because on the rare occasions when I did smoke pot I was smoking ‘blue collar’ marijuana. Which is probably for the best.

Again, as with the apples and the tulips, I did know much of the story of marijuana before I started reading, but not really all of the details. The story of tulips causing a major economic bubble is worth reflecting on at the moment. The plants themselves are equally fascinating, as are little facts gleaned along the way about depression and plant viruses.

But the section on the potato is riveting – and not just for the Irish. This is similar to the first section of The Omnivore’s Dilemma on corn. We really are going to have to do something about the way we produce food – and if you need to know why, then reading this chapter will make it all clear. If the only way we can grow potatoes for McDonald’s fries is to kill the planet then perhaps (and this is just a suggestion) we shouldn’t be eating McDonald’s fries.

I think I liked The Omnivore’s Dilemma better than this one, but really, they were both fascinating and well worth the read.
...more

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Apr 10, 2019 Cathrine ☯️ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audible-or-audiobook

4 🍎 🌷 🍁 🥔 (What, no cannabis leaf emoji? Leave it to Canada to provide a maple leaf stand-in)
Sweetness — Beauty — Intoxication — Control
Sex — Loveliness — Desire — Hunger
In 4 parts on a grand botanical scale and the perfect accompaniment on my nature walks.

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Jul 09, 2012 Caroline rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, 4-star-reads, science, miscellaneous

This is a marvellous book, which discusses the science, sociology, aesthetics and culture, relating to four plants.

Apples
Tulips
Marijuana
Potatoes

Because of who I am, the things that interested me most were the tulip and potato sections.

With the first, he discusses the notorious obsession surrounding tulip cultivation in Holland in the 17th century. With the second he discusses a genetically modified potato which was on sale in the US at the time he wrote the book, in 2001.

The potato is a variety This is a marvellous book, which discusses the science, sociology, aesthetics and culture, relating to four plants.

Apples
Tulips
Marijuana
Potatoes

Because of who I am, the things that interested me most were the tulip and potato sections.

With the first, he discusses the notorious obsession surrounding tulip cultivation in Holland in the 17th century. With the second he discusses a genetically modified potato which was on sale in the US at the time he wrote the book, in 2001.

The potato is a variety called NewLeaf. This is no longer a product being promoted by the company which produces the seeds for it (Monsanto of course), but what the author has to say about it is still very relevant with regard to current and future vegetable research. It has left me feeling a lot less blazé about GM vegetables and monocultures. This may be the only way forward if we are to feed the vast number of people on this planet, but it comes at a price - and that price may be largely unknown. In contrast to the huge vegetable factory-type farming discussed in most of this section, Pollan also visits an organic farmer, and the difference hits you big time. Everything about the factory farms are so alien, and brutal in their approach, (they seemingly use anything they can to get the most produce for the least bucks); and everything about the organic farm is so much more harmonious, and working respectfully with nature. Interestingly the main factory-type vegetable farmer he spoke to, also grows organic vegetables, but just for him and his family's consumption. Go figure.

He also fairly briefly discusses the horrors of the Irish Potato Famine between 1845 and 1852, and that too was extremely interesting.

And now on to matters of the heart. The section on tulips in the 17th century was a great pleasure to read. Here I am just going to type a few chunks out of the book, (some rather chopped about I'm afraid) for those of you who fancy a brief excursion into a time of passion, madness and decadence.(view spoiler)[

Tulip mania in Holland reached its peak between 1634 and 1637.

The queen of all tulips was Semper Augustus. "Generally regarded at the time as the most beautiful flower in the world. In 1624 there were only a dozen or so specimens, most of them owned by Dr. Adriaen Pauw.

This was the intricately-feathered red and white tulip - one bulb of which could change hands for 10,000 guilders at the height of the mania, a sum that would have bought one of the grandest canal houses in Amsterdam. It is now gone from nature. But I have seen paintings of it (the Dutch would commission portraits of venerable tulips they couldn't afford to buy.) Beside a Semper Augustus a modern tulip looks like a toy.

A tulip that falls out of favour soon goes extinct. Generally a strain won't last unless it is regularly replanted, so the chain of genetic continuity can be broken in a generation. Even when people do continue to plant a particular tulip, the vigour of that variety (which is propagated by removing and planting the bulb's "offsets", the little genetically identical bulblets that form at its base) eventually fades and must be abandoned...... Tulips, in other words, are mortal.

No tulip appears in the flower-crowded borders of medieval tapestries, nor is the flower ever mentioned in the early 'herbals' - the Old World encyclopedias of the world's known plants and their uses. The fierceness of the passion that the tulip unleashed in Holland in the seventeenth century (and to a lesser extent in France and England) may have had something to do with the flower's novelty in the west, and the suddenness of its appearance. It is the youngest of our canonical flowers. Ogier Ghislain De Busbecq, an Austrian, claimed to have introduced the first tulip to Europe, sending a consignment of bulbs from Constantinople in 1554. (The word 'tulip' is a corruption of the Turkish word for 'turban'.)

Tulips, like apples, do not come true from seed - which accounts for the astonishing variety it can produce.....though it takes 7 years before a tulip grown from seed flowers and shows its new colours.

(In seventeenth century Holland) botany became a national pastime, followed as closely and avidly as we follow sports today.

Land in Holland being so scarce and expensive, Dutch gardens were miniatures, measured in square feet rather than acres and frequently augmented with mirrors. The Dutch thought of their gardens as jewel boxes, and in such a space even a single flower...could make a powerful statement.

What the Dutch really sought were 'broken' tulips, these were flowers where you get a white or yellow ground, with intricate feathers or flames of a vividly contrasting hue.

In the 1920s the electron microscope was invented, and scientists discovered that the virus causing broken tulips was spread by myzus persicae, the peach potato aphid. Peach trees were common in seventeenth century gardens. By the 1920s the Dutch regarded their tulips as commodities to trade...and since the virus weakened the bulbs it infected (the offsets of a 'broken' tulip were small and few in number), Dutch growers set about ridding their fields of the infection.

There was another Dutch obsession - a quest that has gone on for 400 years - the quest for a black tulip. Today we have 'Queen of the Night' - a dark, glossy maroonish purple. Breeders today are busily seeking a new black tulip because they know that this current standard bearer is probably on her way out.

Alexandre Dumas wrote a novel 'The Black Tulip' (in 1850) based on this search."

(hide spoiler)]

Like most people who have read this book I thought it was a great read - equally fascinating and entertaining. ...more

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Nov 07, 2007 Jen rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I've wanted to read this book ever since it came out, but, so far, I've been pretty deeply disappointed by it. From the jacket copy and reviews I'd read, I'd come to expect a poetic lay-science book about the entwined destinies of plants and humans. Hell, that's what the author's introduction led me to expect, too.

I did not expect, nor want, most of the chapter on the apple to be more concerned about the historical realities of Johnny Appleseed than with the apple itself. I didn't want the autho ...more

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Aug 20, 2016 Cornelia Funke rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

As beguiling as the plants this book enlightened me about

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Jun 30, 2019 Heidi The Reader rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Packed with food-related history, trivia and stories, Michael Pollan attempts to explain how four types of plants have had such a large effect on humanity.

"We automatically think of domestication as something we do to other species, but it makes just as much sense to think of it as something certain plants and animals have done to us, a clever evolutionary strategy for advancing their own interests."

I believe that our lives are intimately intertwined with our environment, even if we can't quite Packed with food-related history, trivia and stories, Michael Pollan attempts to explain how four types of plants have had such a large effect on humanity.

"We automatically think of domestication as something we do to other species, but it makes just as much sense to think of it as something certain plants and animals have done to us, a clever evolutionary strategy for advancing their own interests."

I believe that our lives are intimately intertwined with our environment, even if we can't quite see how. Pollan removes the veil between apples, tulips, marijuana, potatoes, and mankind in order to illustrate how the plants evolved and what kinds of shenanigans they've brought on civilization in the process.

"Our grammar might teach us to divide the world into active subjects and passive objects, but in a coevolutionary relationship every subject is also an object, every object a subject. That's why it makes just as much sense to think of agriculture as something the grasses did to people as a way to conquer the trees."

My favorite chapter was about the tulips. Did you know at one point in the Dutch Republic a tulip bulb cost as much as a house? It was called "tulipmania" and it caused enormous havoc in the local economy when the tulip bubble burst.

I also learned about the evolution of flowers, which I didn't know anything about before reading this. I had only ever considered them from a spiritual perspective — I think it was Eckhart Tolle who talked about flowers being the "spiritual evolution of plants". It's rather interesting actually if you're into that kind of thing.

"But I do wonder if it isn't significant that our experience of flowers is so deeply drenched in our sense of time. Maybe there's a good reason we find their fleetingness so piercing, can scarcely look at a flower in bloom without thinking ahead, whether in hope or regret.

Pollan's writing style wanders no where quickly, so readers who have little patience for storytelling non-fiction may want to choose a different book. I rather liked it.

I think he may have oversimplified the plants and humanity relationship by picking only one motivating desire per plant. Let's be real, things are never as simple as that. But for the premise of this book, it worked well enough.

Basically, The Botany of Desire encourages readers to consider what plants get from us as much as what we get from them. It's a different perspective, like looking at your home from the level of a toddler rather than your usual height. There's things to learn and puzzle out and discover that you may have never even imagined.

Recommended for readers interested in botany and different worldviews. ...more

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Jan 05, 2021 Gretchen Rubin added it

I love the work of Michael Pollan, and his accounts of the apple, the rose, marijuana, and the potato are fascinating. I see the world in a new way.

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Apr 10, 2017 Jim rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish, 1audio, 2non-fiction, science

Reminded me of A History of the World in 6 Glasses with the introduction, except it was even worse. Very long, repetitious, & kept wandering into pseudoscientific philosophy. As well as Scott Brick read this, it was incredibly boring listening to the same points for half an hour, so I quit.

Yes, it is interesting to contemplate whether we domesticated a plant or it domesticated us. The evolutionary imperative of any organism is to spread copies of its DNA. Yuval Noah Harari mentioned it in Sapie ...more

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Mar 10, 2020 Bradley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science, 2020-shelf, non-fiction

It may sound like science fiction, but let me assure you... it's not.

Indeed, Pollan writes very well about the history and effects of four plants that have a huge impact on our lives... even if we may never have had two of them. His tone and his command of the various histories managed to make his writing both personal and wildly interesting.

I'm speaking of Apples, Tulips, Cannabis, and Potatoes, however.

I'll assume that everyone has had apples and potatoes, but I can also assume that everyone i It may sound like science fiction, but let me assure you... it's not.

Indeed, Pollan writes very well about the history and effects of four plants that have a huge impact on our lives... even if we may never have had two of them. His tone and his command of the various histories managed to make his writing both personal and wildly interesting.

I'm speaking of Apples, Tulips, Cannabis, and Potatoes, however.

I'll assume that everyone has had apples and potatoes, but I can also assume that everyone is at least AWARE of cannabis. As for tulips, they once caused rather fascinating Dionysian meltdown among the Dutch. Toppled a kingdom. That's pretty heavy. :)

The real history of Johnny Appleseed might very well have been about apple alcohol. Cider. But once upon a time, and thanks to the wildly diverse possibilities within the apple seed, the whole nation had thousands of different kinds of apples. People selected and bred the best and all of a sudden this nearly unique source of sweetness (sugar being either rare or distasteful thanks to the slave trade) made apples more than a huge market. Sweetness was the key, but when other foods replaced the apple's kingship of sweetness, by that time, the amazing variety had been reduced to a mere handful.

It was our desire for the apples that caused this domestication, but beyond that, the apple trees themselves found themselves in a paradise of genetic dispersion, so helped it along. Selective breeding programs have been a real thing for a long time.

Tulips, for their beauty and a sometimes erratic explosion of color (thanks to a virus that made it weaker) became a craze of economic speculation, driving the prices up until it bankrupted a kingdom.

Cannabis, also a victim or a happy co-author of selective breeding, has undergone massive changes as well. Maybe it was the prohibition against it that made it so coveted, but this is almost as crazy as the Tulip economic bubble.

Potatoes, the last chapter, is all about control. Monsanto. If you like to be freaked out and get the skinny on that debate (as of 2001, when this was published) I can promise you that it will do the job nicely. The kinds of things that are done today with pesticides, GMOs, and the forced termination of genes in order to force farmers to come back, repeatedly, to Monsanto, is a tragedy of epic proportions. And then there's the comparison of this mono-gene-culture to the one that starved a million people in the Potato Famine in Ireland, driving away half the population because they could no longer feed themselves.

Can something like that happen to us?

It's the big question. We're doing it to ourselves. Our need for perfect french fries may undo us all. ...more

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Sep 10, 2007 Eh?Eh! rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: babble-added

Four common plants and I didn't know they each held such a rich history. Well, I was kind of familiar with marijuana's development (not from personal toking, honest Asian, but from being surrounded by tokers - hey, it was Oregon) and that it was completely villified in the "just say no" era of drug awareness education. The chapters on the apple, tulip, and potato offer cautionary evidence on the danger of destroying diversity in the name of commerce. Dratted industry and their shipping lives, ap ...more

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Oct 25, 2015 Suzy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: food, listened-to, non-fiction, mia-book-tours

Wow! Just wow! This was another museum book club pick from our Minneapolis Institute of Art; while I like Michael Pollan it's unlikely I would have otherwise read this fascinating book. Even the description made it look doubtful that it would be my cup of tea. Boy, was I wrong!

Pollan looks at four human desires and four plants that satisfy those desires to explore the interdependence of humans and plants. The desires/plants are Sweet/Apple, Beauty/Tulip, Intoxication/Cannabis and Control/Potato. ...more

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May 13, 2007 Lisa (not getting friends updates) Vegan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone, unless they loathe all non-fiction

Shelves: philosophy, goodreads-author, history, nature, favorites, science, z2001, readbooks-male-author-or-illust, reviewed, non-fiction

I really enjoyed this book (and enjoyed the lecture I attended when the author talked about the book and answered questions.) He talks about 4 crops: apples, potatoes, tulips and marijuana, and the interactions between them and humans: history, culture, human psychology, and science, etc. I knew nothing much about botany and have never been particularly interested in that branch of science, but this book was a very easy read and I found it extremely fascinating. Gave it as a gift on a couple of ...more

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Apr 29, 2014 Nick Black rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-nyc

this was like NPR in printed form, and felt intended to be read in that medium. the potato chapter was great, the marijuana chapter irritating, the tulip chapter needlessly verbose (but full of some of the book's best trivia), the apple chapter...quixotic. it's all grotesquely bucolic, and the lack of any synthesis at the end left me underwhelmed. short, and by all means worth reading if it's all you have available. ...more

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Jun 23, 2008 Alexandra rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I couldn't get into this book at all and gave up reading it after the first chapter. The premise was a good one, but Pollan's writing style drove me up the wall. I called it quits when he started analogizing Johnny Appleseed and Dionysius. Too much navel-gazing and not enough substance. ...more

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Nov 19, 2009 Clif Hostetler rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science

This is an enjoyable book that wanders back and forth through the subjects of botany, history, and literary philosophy. An example of the later is quoted below:

"For look into a flower, and what do you see? Into the very heart of nature's double nature--that is, the contending energies of creation and dissolution, the spring toward complex form and the tidal pull away from it. Apollo and Dionysus were names the Greeks gave to these two faces of nature, and nowhere in nature is their contest as pl This is an enjoyable book that wanders back and forth through the subjects of botany, history, and literary philosophy. An example of the later is quoted below:

"For look into a flower, and what do you see? Into the very heart of nature's double nature--that is, the contending energies of creation and dissolution, the spring toward complex form and the tidal pull away from it. Apollo and Dionysus were names the Greeks gave to these two faces of nature, and nowhere in nature is their contest as plain or as poignant as it is in the beauty of a flower and its rapid passing. There, the achievement of order against all odds and its blithe abandonment. There, the perfection of art and the blind flux of nature. There, somehow, both transcendence and necessity. Could that be it--right there, in a flower--the meaning of life?"

By the time a reader has finished this book they'll know more about apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes than ever before. And along the way perhaps the reader will have picked up a slightly enhanced understanding the interaction of humans and plant life. And as indicated in the quote above, they will be introduced to the author's possible insight into the meaning of life. Every topic in this book was subjected to the Apollo vs. Dionysus analysis somewhere along the line.

In the section on marijuana the author provides a detailed description of what it means in terms of neurochemistry to be high on marijuana. This information was new to me. I got the impression this subject has not been fully researched and there still remains some speculation in the descriptions. He did make the definitive statement that nobody has ever died from an overdose of THC (active ingredient in marijuana). That certainly cannot be said for alcohol. So why is alcohol legal and marijuana outlawed? They both can pose a danger to society if misused, but one is publicly advertised with the caveat, "Please drink responsibly." The other is a crime to possess or use. Surely there's no rational basis for this difference.

The last section on the potato came down pretty hard on genetically engineered plants. I am not as emotionally opposed to this science as some appear to be. I'm in favor of asking questions and looking for problems that may arise. But I'm willing to eat genetically engineered food in the meantime. I figure that if we wait to be absolutely sure of no adverse consequences before using advances in science, all scientific and technological advances will cease.

My hat is off to Michael Pollan for being able to write an interesting narrative around rather ordinary topics. He has the skills of a talented story teller to combine historical and scientific facts with tales of his own personal adventures and interviews with other people. I had to give the book five stars because, quite frankly, I found it to be an enjoyable and interesting book.

Here's a short review of this book from my PageADay Book Lover's Calendar:
THE APPLE TREE’S DILEMMA
“Without flowers, the reptiles, which had gotten along fine in a leafy, fruitless world, would probably still rule. Without flowers, we would not be,” writes Michael Pollan in his absolutely engaging book on the way plants and humans have lived and evolved together. His method is similar to that in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, in that he takes four plants—apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes—and gives us their perspective on the complex relationship between plants and humans. Delicious and nutritious reading.
THE BOTANY OF DESIRE: A PLANT’S-EYE VIEW OF THE WORLD, by Michael Pollan (Random House, 2002)

The following is a discussion of problems related to getting adequate nutrition on a vegan diet:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/1...
...more

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Mar 10, 2020 Trish rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

What a wonderful book!

Desire. There are many forms of it. It can be a food craving, it can be sexual between two of the same species, it can be the need to possess something, …
But what does all that have to do with botany? Well, humans aren’t the only ones wanting something. Plants, like any other life form on this planet, have desires too. The desire to spread and multiply for example.
Not to mention that beings can use another’s desire for their own advantage.

We have lived with plants for a lon What a wonderful book!

Desire. There are many forms of it. It can be a food craving, it can be sexual between two of the same species, it can be the need to possess something, …
But what does all that have to do with botany? Well, humans aren’t the only ones wanting something. Plants, like any other life form on this planet, have desires too. The desire to spread and multiply for example.
Not to mention that beings can use another’s desire for their own advantage.

We have lived with plants for a long time. We need them and they, to some degree, need us. Would they be able to survive without humans? Absolutely. Because they’ve learnt to use other creatures (mammals as well as birds and insects) as well.
But who is domesticating who here?
In four chapters, the author examines four different kinds of desire represented by four different kinds of plants: sweetness as represented by the apple, beauty as represented by the tulip, intoxication as represented by cannabis and control as represented by the potato.

Thus, we discuss anything from how today’s varieties of apples are grown and cultivated (no, planting a seed from your favorite apple isn’t gonna get you anywhere, I’m afraid), to how the tulip became more valuable than gold in the Netherlands in the 17th century and how something as (seemingly) unimportant as beauty was also a great commodity, to the biology of intoxication and plants’ evolution to either kill or manipulate the brains of their consumers, to the cultivation / genetic manipulation of food like the potato and Monsanto’s impact on today’s farming industry.

We learn a lot about evolution and history, but also about politics and man’s need to dominate his world. Some of these stories (like that of Johnny Appleseed) are quirky or downright funny, others are fascinating. I knew much about apples and tulips but learned a lot about cannabis (from the transformation of the political landscape surrounding this mild drug to why plants use this kind of effect as a way to ensure we keep cultivating and even spreading it, to say nothing about the intoxication of animals). The last chapter was my least favourite one. That is not to say that it was bad. It was just that I already know how bad Monsanto is (not even necessarily morally but because of the spread of mono-cultures and limiting new forms from evolving / being invented) as well as genetic modifications to pesticides as much as the food plants themselves and the impact this has on the wilderness. I also know how crazy some food standards are (the best example was the requirements for french fries the author spoke about) and this makes the topic the most depressing of the four. *lol*

A holistic but quite unique view at plants and our relationship with them. I loved how he included everything from biology, chemistry and history to politics and (human as well as animal) psychology.

Last but not least, the writing style was also highly … addictive. *lol* Seriously, I always say that the key to non-fiction becoming more popular is having more authors who can break down complex topics in nice ways without dumbing any given subject down too much and being eloquent in a way that holds the readers’ attention. In this case, I guarantee you’ll even be enthusiastic! ...more

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Feb 04, 2011 Alex rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biology, 2011

Pollan represents one of my favorite types of writers: modern polymaths who can bring scientific, historic and literary knowledge to bear on whatever they're writing about. When it's done well, I don't care what the question is; for instance, tulips aren't really my thing, despite their presence on my dining room table right now. The conversation between history, literature and science really interests me, though, which is why nearly all of the books I read fall into one of those categories.

(Tha Pollan represents one of my favorite types of writers: modern polymaths who can bring scientific, historic and literary knowledge to bear on whatever they're writing about. When it's done well, I don't care what the question is; for instance, tulips aren't really my thing, despite their presence on my dining room table right now. The conversation between history, literature and science really interests me, though, which is why nearly all of the books I read fall into one of those categories.

(That's sortof a joke.)

But I couldn't get into the first half of Botany of Desire, and the reason is that the book is padded. I've been curious about the reality behind the Johnny Appleseed legend, so it's terrific that he delved into it - but it would have made a great ten-page essay. Pollan stretches it for nearly 60 pages. He repeats himself (a lot); he circles around; he includes details about people he's met that are irrelevant and not all that interesting.

So far, so three star book.

The section on pot, though, gets hilariously loopier. Halfway through this chapter - after an interesting history of what the War on Drugs has done for pot, and right at the point where, in other chapters, he would have started to repeat himself - he instead ends up in Amsterdam, trying the new breeds of pot for the first time, apparently, in years, and the rest of the chapter is one long, adoring love letter to the glories of weed, written while ecstatically baked. Non-pot-fans might find this chapter less endearing than I did, but for me, as a casual fan of the drug and, more importantly, as a guy who finds the question of what mind-altering drugs do for us interesting, it was the best part of the book. Too bad he still can't get past the slightly apologetic tone most grown-ups who still smoke pot feel forced to adopt - why not just mention it matter-of-factly as a normal thing many people do? That is, after all, what it is. But still. Fun stuff.

The final chapter on potatoes contains some of the usual "Holy shit, we have no idea what we're doing" stuff on genetic engineering, and there's a "sky is falling" feel to it that made me roll my eyes, but his take on in it is interesting enough. I dug this book. ...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Bettie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: autumn-2015, gardening, nonfic-nov-2015, us-ohio, tbr-busting-2015, teh-demon-booze, recreational-drugs, history, nonfiction, sciences

Description: Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the appl ...more

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Feb 23, 2019 Numidica rated it really liked it

Michael Pollan has convinced me to buy only organic potatoes from now on.

The Botany of Desire is a book which presages two of Pollan’s later books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and How to Change Your Mind; the other two books were written later, and are better books, in my opinion. That said, there is much to learn in reading the Botany of Desire (BoD, hereinafter). Pollan, like me, is a gardener, so I have common beliefs on many issues touching land use and food; anyone who has gardened for a long t Michael Pollan has convinced me to buy only organic potatoes from now on.

The Botany of Desire is a book which presages two of Pollan’s later books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and How to Change Your Mind; the other two books were written later, and are better books, in my opinion. That said, there is much to learn in reading the Botany of Desire (BoD, hereinafter). Pollan, like me, is a gardener, so I have common beliefs on many issues touching land use and food; anyone who has gardened for a long time comes to understand soil and ecology, and Pollan clearly does.

BoD is divided in four sections: Apples, Tulips, Marijuana, and Potatoes. The section on potatoes was clearly the basis for, or dry run for The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but Omnivore’s Dilemma is a better treatment of modern agriculture in general, as well as organic farming and its uses. I will say the recitation of pesticides and herbicides that get dumped on standard potato crops is scary; one farmer said that after application of one of the more potent pesticides, he does not go into the fields for five days for any reason, and he does not allow his employees to do so. Also, the use of GMO plants with built-in pesticides like bt (bacillus thuringiensis) engineered into their DNA is frightening, especially given the now widely known worldwide decline of insects. Pollan’s point, which is perhaps better made in Omnivore’s Dilemma, is that it doesn’t have to be this way; for a slightly higher price we could have organic produce, or at least we could have far less chemically treated produce.

The other point Pollan makes, both with regard to potatoes and apples is that clones (which is what all the varieties of spuds and apples are) are more susceptible to insect pests and eventually lose vigor. Remember the term, “hybrid vigor”? Clones don’t have it, because, well, they’re clones, not hybrids.

The section on marijuana is interesting, but Pollan covered the same ground much more comprehensively in How to Change Your Mind.

The section on tulips mostly was uninteresting to me because it was more about the tulip “bubble” in Holland in the 1600’s than about gardening or plants, and I could have learned all I wanted to know about “tulipmania” in three or four paragraphs, versus the twenty or more pages spent on it. Also, I’ll admit that as a gardener I dislike tulips. One could create a plastic replica of a tulip that has as much interest to me; I don’t like formal gardens. There was some interesting stuff in this section about how plants have evolved to attract pollinators (bees, mostly).

As for apples, that part was interesting, and I learned some things I did not know, though perhaps a bit more than I wanted to about Johnny Appleseed.

So my recommendation is to read The Omnivore’s Dilemma to learn about food, and How to Change Your Mind to learn about psychoactive drugs; both are excellent books. If you read those two, you can decide for yourself whether you would like the added information available in BoD. As always, Pollan’s prose is engaging, and he clearly has studied in depth the subjects he is writing about, though sometimes he tells the reader a bit more than is absolutely necessary. Three and a half stars.

...more

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Dec 28, 2008 Lightreads rated it liked it · review of another edition

A brief but compelling history of four plants whose genetic destiny has been markedly altered by man – the apple, the tulip, cannabis, and the potato. Pollan’s argument is that, though we see domestication as a strictly top-down, subject-to-object process, there really may also be some co-evolutionary force at work. Johnny Appleseed’s efforts were to the overwhelming advantage of apple genetic proliferation, and the science of mass potato farming means more seeds are planted every year. But we’l A brief but compelling history of four plants whose genetic destiny has been markedly altered by man – the apple, the tulip, cannabis, and the potato. Pollan’s argument is that, though we see domestication as a strictly top-down, subject-to-object process, there really may also be some co-evolutionary force at work. Johnny Appleseed’s efforts were to the overwhelming advantage of apple genetic proliferation, and the science of mass potato farming means more seeds are planted every year. But we’ll get to the argument bit in a minute.

As quirky, offbeat history, this is fabulous. It turns out botany is an incredibly versatile vehicle in which to travel from social psychology to religion to bioethics. Pollan makes fascinating detours through early American advertising schemes, pauses briefly to describe the hallucinogenic mixture of mushrooms and opium European witches would administer via dildo, and then hops blithely on to the cost-benefit economics of potato plants engineered to make their own pesticide. It’s a wonderfully engaging trip, made all the more so by Pollan’s lucid, thoughtful, frankly lovely writing. I haven’t enjoyed a spot of nonfiction prose on a purely esthetic level in a long time, and for that pleasure alone I could recommend this book.

As for the argument – how best to put this – it’s not so much one. This whole co-evolution idea occurred to Pollan one day as he was gardening, and it never really leaves the realm of warm afternoon, busy hands, strange and intriguing thought. The whole thing comes out interesting, undeniably pretty, but ultimately nothing more than an intellectual exercise. An exercise I enjoyed, mind you, but I’m really not after musings over the Apollonian and Dionysian paradigms in my discussions of anything related to evolution: I’m after, you know, scientifically sound genotypic mechanisms. But like I said, I was perfectly happy to go along. I just fervently hope no one came away from this book believing this is what is meant by “theory of evolution.”

Eclectic, engaging subject matter. A bit of pleasant but deeply fluffy intellectual masturbation tacked around the edges for an excuse. Wonderful writing. A good time, all around.

...more

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Jan 16, 2008 Don LaVange rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Jason, Dad, Jono

Recommended to Don by: Scott Abbott

Shelves: favorites, history, food, entheogens

I read this a few days after "The Omnivore's Dilemma", and began it the day after picking up "In Defense of Food". I loved the former, thought the latter was thin and a resaying of what he'd already said. This book was a beautiful book, though not the tome that O.D was, it's beautifully written. It also sets the stage nicely for O.D.

Here, using apples (with their amazing capacity to evolve based on seeds that don't grow true to the parent), tuplips, cannabis and potatoes Pollan sets out plainly ...more

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Jun 17, 2018 Mehrsa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This may be my favorite Pollan book of all time. It's so beautifully written and full of wonder at the plant world. The section on tulips as a flower embodying Apollo and Dionysus and about the apple were just brilliant.

However, I do think the goes a little nuts about GMOs at the end. I'm tempted to go with him into skepticism, but I am not sure it's warranted. I think the dangers of monoculture are real, but I am not as concerned about the GMOs as he is ...more

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Apr 08, 2007 Kat rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

Pollan's The Botany of Desire is by far one of the best books I have ever read, and it is one of those books that has changed my world view for the better. Pollan takes his readers on an odyssey through the natural histories of four plants that have been important to the course of human history, and relates them to a certain form of desire that he believes to be inherent in each and every person. He chronicles the potato (sustenance), the tulip (beauty), cannabis (pleasure), and the apple (sweet ...more

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Aug 26, 2020 Allie rated it it was ok

Shelves: nonfiction

Do you talk to your plants? More to the point, do you think your plants talk back to you? If so, I have just the book for you…

The Botany of Desire explores the relationship between plants and humans, but rather than focusing on human agency, food journalist and gardener Michael Pollan tells the story from the plants’ point of view. He takes the idea of co-evolution as his starting point: the idea that two species evolve in a mutually dependent manner leading to the selection of certain traits. P ...more

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Apr 22, 2015 Ms.pegasus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone interested in gardening or food

Recommended to Ms.pegasus by: browsing at my local bookstore

Shelves: history, food, nonfiction

Michael Pollan approaches the relationship between plants and humans through the aperture of the plant. The altered perspective displays the multiple props of genetic diversity — color, shape, size, fragrance, taste and robustness — offered to seduce the gardener's favors. Of course Pollan realizes that intent cannot be ascribed to the plant. These are merely the standard tools available to the plant for survival and procreation. ”Our desires are simply more grist for evolution's mill, no differ Michael Pollan approaches the relationship between plants and humans through the aperture of the plant. The altered perspective displays the multiple props of genetic diversity — color, shape, size, fragrance, taste and robustness — offered to seduce the gardener's favors. Of course Pollan realizes that intent cannot be ascribed to the plant. These are merely the standard tools available to the plant for survival and procreation. ”Our desires are simply more grist for evolution's mill, no different from a change in the weather: a peril for some species, an opportunity for others.” (xxi) Nevertheless, this novel perspective shifts the focus away from a narrative of static human mastery to a dynamic Pollan calls the coevolutionary relationship.

Pollan divides his exploration into four sections whose titles are consistent with his theme. The third section is titled “Desire: Intoxication/Plant: Marijuana.” Some readers might be tempted to skip ahead to this intriguing chapter. Don't! What looks at first glance like four separate essays are carefully structured stories of historical change reflecting abstract and ironic connections. The apple of chapter 1 is a plant of extreme biodiversity. The five seeds of a single fruit are a roll of the genetic dice. To bear fruit that resemble the parent apple, the tree must be grafted, a technique developed by the Chinese by the dawn of their dynastic history. This extreme biodiversity enabled the apple to adapt. The seeds John Chapman planted with both evangelical and entrepreneurial zeal sprouted all manner of fruit, most of it harvested for cider. Its familiarity was a welcome symbol of civilization. By contrast “Desire: Control/Plant: The Potato (chapter four) chronicles a recurring tragedy of monoculture. The tulip of chapter two and marijuana of chapter three, two unlikely fellow-travelers, have obverse stories that intersect in Holland.

Pollan reminds the readers of changes now taken for granted. Gardens were not always landscaped for aesthetic appeal. Plants were prized for their utility. Not only did they provide food, but they were an important source for apothecary experiment. Sweetness was once a metaphor for rarity and perfection, as in the Shakespearean sense. This was before plentiful cheap sugar reduced the sensation to something commonplace and without nuance. (Talk to a Japanese person and she will aver that Japanese desserts have a “different” kind of sweetness if you doubt the flavor's true complexity). ”Like a shimmering equal sign, the word sweetness denoted a reality commensurate with human desire: it stood for fulfillment. Since then sweetness has lost much of its power and become slightly … well, saccarine.” The Incas were model farmers. They combated mountainous terrain, variegated microclimates and plant infestation by planting multiple varieties of potato. Hence, the affliction that destroyed them was not a potato famine. Of course no account of the tulip would be complete without a review of tulipomania. Pollan travels the route of John Chapman through the then Northwest Territory and journeys to Idaho and Holland to interview modern day growers. He also inserts colorful and truly funny anecdotes from his own garden. His chapter on marijuana is a sobering reflection on the effects of a misguided public policy, and a fascinating look at ongoing research in neuroscience. Finally, his thoughts on genetic engineering are thought provoking. He presents the efforts of genetic engineers, commercial growers and small-scale organic farmers with depth and objectivity.

Pollan's writing is transcendent. He is informative, poetic and philosophical. His phrasings are experiences to be savored over and over again.
...more

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Aug 20, 2009 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

just as a warning, the below is not really about the book by pollan at all (which is great, btw!), but is mostly some really juvenile hatin' on thoreau. so if you read it, shut up, i warned you; i needed to get some trash-talking out of my system before going on w/ my day.

*********

so i cannot, for the life of me, read thoreau. & this may not be entirely his fault. it may not just be that i find him frustratingly ignorant, pompous, rambling, lacking cohesion & coherence, more irritatingly than pr just as a warning, the below is not really about the book by pollan at all (which is great, btw!), but is mostly some really juvenile hatin' on thoreau. so if you read it, shut up, i warned you; i needed to get some trash-talking out of my system before going on w/ my day.

*********

so i cannot, for the life of me, read thoreau. & this may not be entirely his fault. it may not just be that i find him frustratingly ignorant, pompous, rambling, lacking cohesion & coherence, more irritatingly than profoundly w/out style, hypocritical, blah blah blah... because when i think these things i assume it's at least partly because i'm either too stupid or too culturally vapid to "get it" (tho in this case that theory's feeling a little stretched).

to be fair, ht also has pretty shit luck w/ me. when i finally got around to reading a full collection of his essays this week it was for a class, making this the first time i can EVER IN MY LIFE remember reading something i didn't want to read (so of course, irritatedface); i was also around 3/4 of the way thru when i picked up a copy of the botany of desire, which makes the former collection look like preschool sketchwork & illustrates perfectly my theory that michael pollan's nature writings (his less overtly-about-agribusiness writings) are thoreau minus suck.

so now i'm pretty much ruined for thoreau, even tho pollan quotes him & references him & generally seems to boycrush on him. whatever, michael pollan; you may not be happy about it, but you've allowed me to feel WAY SUPER COMFY about my visceral hatred for such essays as "walking," which, even if i'm humming along comfortably for a while, underlining & marking, suddenly breaks out such gems as "I THINK THAT THE FARMER DISPLACES THE INDIAN EVEN BECAUSE HE REDEEMS THE MEADOW, AND SO MAKES HIMSELF STRONGER AND IN SOME RESPECTS MORE NATURAL" (caps & emphasis mine, obvs), or the bullshit about the "weapons" ("the bush-whack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and the bog-hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow") that make the farmer's ability to "redeem" nature far superior to the unskilled following of the indian to natural occurring sources of food, or whatever fuck'd & self-contradictory political ramblings, oh my GOD i am so grossed out.

thoreau, you were probably a pretty cool dude once, but right now you seem like a libertarian w/ out the constitution, a naturalist w/out a respect for (or knowledge of) real nature, a man opposed to the press who finds himself entrenched in its habits. i will "appreciate your relevance" but i will not like you, & i will only ever read you when people make me, because michael pollan is like you if you were educated & relevant (but i know, dude, "every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and tear it" - !!!!!!), if you were capable of transitions, if you cut out yr empty lines of political propaganda, if you were able to integrate culture & history & politics & mythology & science & some openly speculative musings into something enjoyable to read, if you didn't sound like such an obnoxious little fucker. you are gross, pollan is sexy, the end. now i'm going to go lie on the beach w/ a good book, goddamn it. ...more

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About Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan

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Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism.

Excerpted from Wikipedia. ...more

Books by Michael Pollan

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

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“For it is only by forgetting that we ever really drop the thread of time and approach the experience of living in the present moment, so elusive in ordinary hours.” — 33 likes

“Witches and sorcerers cultivated plants with the power to "cast spells" -- in our vocabulary, "psychoactive" plants. Their potion recipes called for such things as datura, opium poppies, belladona, hashish, fly-agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria), and the skin of toads (which can contain DMT, a powerful hallucinogen). These ingredients would be combined in a hempseed-oil-based "flying ointment" that the witches would then administer vaginally using a special dildo. This was the "broomstick" by which these women were said to travel. (119)” — 22 likes

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