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

"Read it anyway," said she. So I did.

And this is, in fact, a superior plant book: both fascinating in its facts and implications, and downright poetic in its style. Michael Pollan makes the evolution of tulips and potatoes read like exotic adventures, and makes the scientific details clear even to an ignoramus like yours truly.

Read this. You'll like it. Even if you don't like plant books.


Being part of this world   February 21, 2006
Newton Ooi (Phoenix, Arizona United States)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

A fundamental trait of humans is how we satisfy our desires by changing the natural world around us. Nowhere is this more true than in the crops we grow and how we grow them. Humans have a long history of creating new species of plants and animals by selective breeding. This book by Michael Pollan takes a complementary but diametrically different view; that these crops we change are also affecting us; that our desire for certain characteristics in food items somehow coevolved with these very food items. This book advances this argument by examining the history of four plants: the apple, the potato, the tulip, and marijuana, and how their place in human societies have evolved with time.

In modern times, this evolution has been one-upped by man, who now uses genetic engineering to achieve what was once impossible. In prior times, the coevolution of crops and man mitigated man's desire to strive for uniformity in crops. Geographical isolation of many societies meant that each human society would select different variants of each crop; hence preserving biodiversity over the entire world. Nowadays, with modern modes of travel and the presence of multinational corporations, this has been changed. Man can now insert genes from one species to another that would have never mixed in the course of natural evolution. This book examines such recent phenomena, their manifestations in various countries and corporate labs, and how farmers are reacting to it.

All in all, a great book to read about agriculture, genetics, evolution, and the role of humans on this planet of ours.


A Fascinating Read   October 7, 2007
Cory Richardson
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan challenges the notion that mankind can control the natural world, subjugating plants to the will of the gardener. Through a discussion of four plants closely associated with human cultivation: apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato, Pollan demonstrates that organisms which possess traits desirable to the gardener have been able manipulate humans to cultivate them. Each plant has a different strategy for assuring that humans will continue to include it in their gardens. The apple, for example, is an extremely diverse species whose seeds contain millions of possible variations of both the fruit produced and the tree itself. Whether one is looking to make hard cider or munch on a crisp green fruit, the apple tree has the genetic code to produce the fruit humans look for.
In The Botany of Desire, Pollan focuses on the four plants mentioned above, placing each plant in a category, and explains how plants within that category possess characteristics which make them desirable to humans. The apple and other fruits appeal to our sense of taste, and, if fermented, our desire for inebriation. The tulip appeals to mankind's sense of beauty; marijuana, our desire to achieve an altered state of mind; the potato our need for nourishment and desire to genetically engineer crops. In short, each of these plants is successful in an evolutionary sense because it causes us to cultivate it.
Although Pollan's book is an intriguing read, I found it unsettling that he often rattles off facts and figures without citing a direct source, such as the assertion on page 219: "a potato farmer in Idaho spends roughly $1,950 an acre (mainly on chemicals, electricity and water)." Pollan does include a few pages of sources in the back of his book, but he could make a stronger argument that would stand up to academic scrutiny with the addition of endnotes.
In addition to a vast amount of research and traveling prior to writing this book, Pollan makes The Botany of Desire a quality literary work by using recurring themes to tie the four parts of the book together. Through returning to his garden at many points over the course of the book, Pollan is able to tie all four of his subjects into a common space. Approaching the reader as a fellow gardener gives him or her a sense of connection to Pollan and his garden. By the end of the book, I felt as though I knew Michael Pollan and his garden intimately. Another example of this continuity is Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and revelry. Dionysus appears in both chapters one and three, were Pollan relates him to cider, Johnny Appleseed, and mind-altering substances.
Overall, Pollan's clear style and journalistic narrative flows easily and keeps the reader entertained throughout the book. He makes effective use of descriptive details and personal experiences to relate to the reader as he argues his theme of plants manipulating humans to include them in their gardens. The Botany of Desire is a must read for anyone interested in how plants we encounter on a daily basis cause us to cultivate them around the globe.



great book   February 27, 2002
jon (chicago, illinois USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

this is my favorite book - fiction or nonfiction - so far this year. this spring after i've planted my garden and all the new plants begin to bloom, i'm going to sit in my garden chair and read this again.

some reviewers said that they didn't feel michael pollan proved how plants themselves where changed by man (or visa versa). they much have had the tv on as they read the book.

do yourself a favor and read this book.