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When you get to the part about how Monsanto licenses its seeds for one planting season only and how it's created a GM potato the secretes its own insectide, you'll understand why our food system is so screwed up. And you'll probably never to want to eat at McD's again.Well-written and reasoned. Read this book even if you're not a botanist or eco-warrior. It might just poke you in the mind a bit.
I didn't gain too much from this thesis and actually felt a bit beaten over the head by it. Apollonian ideals concept throughout the book.
But in the middle Pollan loses what makes his books often so interesting. I enjoy Pollan's personal telling of the narrative.
The book starts off great with the apple and ends well with the potato. But he really pushes this Dionysian vs.
How he inserts himself into the history of the plant he is discussing. I also enjoy the quirky details he relates in the history.
At points the book, especially the tulip chapter, seems thin and heavily molded to this ideals debate. I get wanting a unified theme but it just came off as a long winded lecture that did little to illuminate the best portions of the text.
This is a great book, that goes very well with the other books Michael Pollan has written (In Defense of Food and The Omnivores Dilemma). A little different style from those two, as it takes the view from the plant, rather than our view of the plant. Great look at how the plants listed in the book (apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes) actually have a hold on us, as opposed to the other way around.Great book, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in botany, gardening, organic food, or anything else related to that.
Wonderfully written book. Just scholarly enough to be serious as well as a good read.
For anyone who interested about the way that humans are changing plants and agriculture to "better meet our desire" this is the book to read. For a term paper I wrote on GMOs, I was especially inspired by Pollan's chapter on the Potato. It is a great book, very interesting, and very fun to read.
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