The Botany of Desire (Michael Pollan)

Opening any book by Michael Pollan is always a moment of eager anticipation and almost febrile excitement - and The Botany of Desire is no exception. Beautifully written in Pollan’s characteristic sparkling prose, the book is also rigorously documented and reads compulsively. Human beings in general, and farmers and gardeners in particular, are accustomed to the idea that they can bend the natural realm to their needs and desires, weeding out less desirable species to make room for coveted ones. In his “Plant’s eye view of the world”, Pollan operates a complete reversal of this point of view and invites us to consider the world, not from man’s controlling standpoint, but from the “shoes” of a plant, using whatever desirable traits it has to lure us into selecting it and favouring it over other species. Post-Darwinian theories of evolution would very likely not be entirely in agreement with Pollan’s story (they would probably argue that it is the gene using us for its own propagation, and that the plant itself ends up being favoured only as a collateral “advantage” to carrying the gene), but the scientific accuracy here is not the point - the book remains eminently thought provoking, as it touches upon subjects such as GMOs, their unquantifiable externalities, and the necessity to preserve biodiversity. An excellent read for anyone interested in biology and natural history, and for anyone else with an interest in the challenges of modern agriculture.