The Botany of DesireRandom House, 2001 - 271 Seiten In 1637, one Dutchman paid as much for a single tulip bulb as the going price of a town house in Amsterdam. Three and a half centuries later, Amsterdam is once again the mecca for people who care passionately about one particular plant -- thought this time the obsessions revolves around the intoxicating effects of marijuana rather than the visual beauty of the tulip. How could flowers, of all things, become such objects of desire that they can drive men to financial ruin? In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan argues that the answer lies at the heart of the intimately reciprocal relationship between people and plants. In telling the stories of four familiar plant species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, Pollan illustrates how they evolved to satisfy humankinds's most basic yearnings -- and by doing so made themselves indispensable. For, just as we've benefited from these plants, the plants, in the grand co-evolutionary scheme that Pollan evokes so brilliantly, have done well by us. The sweetness of apples, for example, induced the early Americans to spread the species, giving the tree a whole new continent in which to blossom. So who is really domesticating whom? Weaving fascinating anecdotes and accessible science into gorgeous prose, Pollan takes us on an absorbing journey that will change the way we think about our place in nature. |
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Seite 18
... metaphor . ( The final insult came with the invention of synthetic sweeteners . ) Both the experience and the metaphor seem to me worth recover- ing , if for no other reason than to appreciate the apple's former power . Start with the ...
... metaphor . ( The final insult came with the invention of synthetic sweeteners . ) Both the experience and the metaphor seem to me worth recover- ing , if for no other reason than to appreciate the apple's former power . Start with the ...
Seite 70
... metaphor , so that even a meadow of wildflowers brims with meanings not of our making . Move into the garden , however , and the meanings only multiply as the flowers take aim not only at the bee's or the bat's or the butterfly's ...
... metaphor , so that even a meadow of wildflowers brims with meanings not of our making . Move into the garden , however , and the meanings only multiply as the flowers take aim not only at the bee's or the bat's or the butterfly's ...
Seite 191
... metaphor is theirs — to run this new generation of plants . The metaphors we use to describe the natural world strongly influence the way we approach it , the style and extent of our at- tempts at control . It makes all the difference ...
... metaphor is theirs — to run this new generation of plants . The metaphors we use to describe the natural world strongly influence the way we approach it , the style and extent of our at- tempts at control . It makes all the difference ...
Inhalt
Beauty Plant The Tulip | 59 |
Intoxication Plant Marijuana | 111 |
Control Plant The Potato | 181 |
Urheberrecht | |
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agriculture Amanita muscaria American animals Apollonian apple trees apple's artificial selection beauty bees black tulip bloom brain bulb called cannabinoid cannabis century chemical cider clones color consciousness crop culture Dionysian Dionysus discovered domesticated drug Dutch evolution evolutionary experience fact farm farmers field flowers Forsline Forsyth french fries frontier fruit garden genes genetic engineering green grow growers happened hashish human desire hybrids insects John Chapman Johnny Appleseed kind land least less look marijuana Mechoulam memes metaphor MICHAEL POLLAN Mike Heath monoculture Monsanto natural selection nature's never NewLeafs Ohio orchard peony pesticide petals pollen potato probably psychoactive plants Queen of Night rose Russet Burbanks sativa scientists seedling seeds Semper Augustus sense sexual simply sinsemilla soil species spuds Steve Young story sweetness taste things tion tulip tulipomania turn weeds wild apples wilderness York