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 xxii
... natural selection has blurred . Whereas once humankind exerted its will in the rela- tively small arena of artificial selection ( the arena I think of , metaphorically , as a garden ) and nature held sway everywhere else , today the ...
... natural selection has blurred . Whereas once humankind exerted its will in the rela- tively small arena of artificial selection ( the arena I think of , metaphorically , as a garden ) and nature held sway everywhere else , today the ...
Seite xxiii
... selection has become a much more important chapter in natural history as it has moved into the space once ruled exclu- sively by natural selection . That space , which is the one we often call " the wild , " was never quite as innocent ...
... selection has become a much more important chapter in natural history as it has moved into the space once ruled exclu- sively by natural selection . That space , which is the one we often call " the wild , " was never quite as innocent ...
Seite 81
Michael Pollan. The tulip's genetic variability has in fact given nature — or , more precisely , natural selection — a great deal to play with . From among the chance mutations thrown out by a flower , nature pre- serves the rare ones ...
Michael Pollan. The tulip's genetic variability has in fact given nature — or , more precisely , natural selection — a great deal to play with . From among the chance mutations thrown out by a flower , nature pre- serves the rare ones ...
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