Michael Pollan has been making news of late with his recently published book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, which I have not read (though plan to). I did recently finish his 2001 tome, Botany of Desire, which explores the history of four plants: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato.
The book is great, but flawed, and if you read it, I would recommend that you skip the introduction, just because it presents at length a thesis that the rest of the book fails to fulfill. He argues that plants have manipulated us humans into serving their needs and ends just as much as we have manipulated them (through grafting, etc.) to satisfy our desires. While I believe that plants and humans have traveled on a co-evolutionary trajectory, I think it is a bit much to state that plants are “willful” participants in it or smug victors, basking in the glory of hoodwinking us into propagating their species.
That said, the stories of each of these four plants and their impacts on our culture are fascinating. I would recommend it for the chapter on the potato alone, which brilliantly assails the common practice of monoculture, which has in large measure necessitated the use of aggressive herb- and pesticide regimes, and connects this to the corporatization of farming, the possible perils of genetic engineering, and many other issues affecting our health and food supply. It is all very interesting, and well worth a read.
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February 28th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
[...] has a review of Michael Pollan’s new book In Defense of Food, while Erin at Gastronormous talks about his earlier book, The Botany of [...]
February 28th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I just wanted to let you know that I linked to this post from Berry Go Round, a new plant-focussed blog carnival.
March 15th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
One of the few reviews of this book that I agree with 100%, including your emphasis on the chapter on the potato. In fact, until I read that chapter, I was ready to tell anyone who asked that the book was pretty ho-hum.
The writing was fine, but he certainly wasn’t supporting his thesis. I was especially irritated because not all that long ago I read a book that DID support the thesis, and Pollan nowhere acknowledged that prior book. That book is “In Praise of Plants” by the French tropical botanist Francis Hallé. The book is filled with accessible science and, most importantly, a stupendous sense of humor. I highly recommend it, especially to all those who were disappointed in Pollan’s book.