num_pages: 297
description: 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?
language: English
title: The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
titlecomplete: The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
genres: Biology, Environment, Plants, Science, Health, Nature, Food, Nonfiction, History, Gardening
ratings_count: 55226
awards: awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Borders Original Voices Award
category: Nonfiction
publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks