Adult Nonfiction 581.6 P 2001 Summary: The book that helped make
Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of Cooked
and The Omnivore's Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts
in America 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? Question about returns, requests