The Botany of Desire

Resource Information

The work The Botany of Desire represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Merrimack Valley Library Consortium. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Audio, Musical, Music.

Label

The Botany of Desire

Creator

• Pollan, Michael

Subject

• Nature
• Nonfiction
• Science

Summary

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 apple, the tulop, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, the plants have also benefited at least as much from their association with us. So who is really domesticating whom?

Accompanying matter

technical information on music