Esrm the Botany of Desire
1/30/2011 The Botany of Desire | By Michael Pollan |
ESRM 100 | The Relationship Of Humans and Plants |
Review of The Botany of Desire – By Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan opens the book questioning the relationship of humans and nature. Who is the subject and who is the object? Who really is domesticating who? From a plant’s eye, he challenges the traditional relationship of human and nature and presents the argument that the four plants- Apples, Tulips, Marijuana and the Potato have shaped human evolution just like we shaped theirs. He calls it “co-evolution”. Nature plays a part in controlling us. It is what the plants know about our desires that made them grow, survive and spread around the world until today. Each has some qualities that know how to stimulate human senses. The apple is a fruit that appeals to a human’s yearning for sweetness, the tulip is a flower that appeals to a human’s yearning for beauty, marijuana is a weed that appeals a human’s yearning for intoxication and the potato appeals to a human’s desire for control. As time goes by, in order to survive, plants learn to adapt, change forms to a new species to suit the environment as well as increase humans desire for them.
Chapter 1 introduces the legendary “Apple Tree Man”, John Chapman, who introduced the species to several locations in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The book recounts the basic natural history of the apple and also explains apple’s importance in human civilization. An apple’s taste of sweetness is a noble quality and it symbolizes satisfaction of human desire. Chapter 1 was filled with Chapman’s story of his journey – how he planted thousands of apple trees across wild range of orchards and ultimately sold them cheaper than other apple cultivars. The author praises John’s original way of planting seeds, going from place to place and reminding us that nature has its own way. “By reverting to wild ways-to sexual reproduction, that is, and going to
ESRM 100 | The Relationship Of Humans and Plants |
Review of The Botany of Desire – By Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan opens the book questioning the relationship of humans and nature. Who is the subject and who is the object? Who really is domesticating who? From a plant’s eye, he challenges the traditional relationship of human and nature and presents the argument that the four plants- Apples, Tulips, Marijuana and the Potato have shaped human evolution just like we shaped theirs. He calls it “co-evolution”. Nature plays a part in controlling us. It is what the plants know about our desires that made them grow, survive and spread around the world until today. Each has some qualities that know how to stimulate human senses. The apple is a fruit that appeals to a human’s yearning for sweetness, the tulip is a flower that appeals to a human’s yearning for beauty, marijuana is a weed that appeals a human’s yearning for intoxication and the potato appeals to a human’s desire for control. As time goes by, in order to survive, plants learn to adapt, change forms to a new species to suit the environment as well as increase humans desire for them.
Chapter 1 introduces the legendary “Apple Tree Man”, John Chapman, who introduced the species to several locations in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The book recounts the basic natural history of the apple and also explains apple’s importance in human civilization. An apple’s taste of sweetness is a noble quality and it symbolizes satisfaction of human desire. Chapter 1 was filled with Chapman’s story of his journey – how he planted thousands of apple trees across wild range of orchards and ultimately sold them cheaper than other apple cultivars. The author praises John’s original way of planting seeds, going from place to place and reminding us that nature has its own way. “By reverting to wild ways-to sexual reproduction, that is, and going to
Cited: Fowler, Cary. "Artificial Crop Selection Is Destroying Biodiversity." Latest News, Comment and Reviews from the Guardian | Guardian.co.uk. Sept.-Oct. 2009. Web. 06 Jan. 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/16/charles-darwin-scienceofclimatechange Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: a Plant 's-eye View of the World. New York: Random House, 2002. 15-29. Print. PBS PREVIEWS | The Botany of Desire. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 07 Jan. 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdXOeWMwX-4.