The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World, by Michael Pollan

Synopsis: 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 tulip, 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, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?

Published: May 2001 | ISBN: 978-0375760396

Author’s Homepage: https://michaelpollan.com/
Author’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaelpollan

New York Times Book Review
Publishers Weekly Book Review
The Guardian Book Review
Rodale Institute Book Review

Amazon Associates (SBAD gets a % of sales from books sold via these links, to help us do more work for science books)

Paperback Edition: The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World
Audible Edition: The Botany of Desire