The Botany of Desire (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Michael Pollan
- First Published: 2001
- Type of Work: Natural history, nature, science, and environment
- Genres: Nonfiction, Nature writing, Science and technology
- Subjects: Beauty, Flowers, Human behavior, Edible plants, Environment or environmental health, Plants, Gardens or gardening, Potatoes, Botany or botanists, Marijuana, Natural history
Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire tells the story of four familiar plants—the apple, the tulip, the marijuana plant, and the potato—and the human desires that link their destinies to our own. Its broader subject is the complex reciprocal relationship between the human and natural worlds, as illustrated through the cultural history of plant domestication and gardening. Pollan writes in his introduction that his book is “as much about the human desires that connect us to those plants as it is about the plants themselves.” These human desires, he asserts, “form a...
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