This is a fascinating account of how domesticated plants, and by inference all domesticated species, manipulate human desires in order to ensure their own survival. By examining in detail four plants and the corresponding desires they fulfill – apple/sweetness, tulip/beauty, marijuana/intoxication and potato/order – Pollan illustrates the intertwined, symbiotic relationships mankind has with the natural world, despite our increasing efforts to control and distance ourselves from that world. At the sasme time, we learn the fascinating stories of each plant, how over time its relationship with humans intensified. From Johnny Appleseed to tulipomania, underground pot growers to Monsanto chemists perfecting potatoes, this natural history is as engaging and as much of a page turner as any fictional work.

Even more my kind of book than The Omnivore’s Dilemma; Pollan tends to repeat himself a little bit, and he needs to be edited a little more tightly in general, but his ideas are wonderful, and wonderfully expressed. Lovely.

I decided to read this book after reading a book review of Michael Pollan’s new book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemna: a natural history of four meals.” (www.michaelpollan.com) Michael Pollan is the Knight professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at U.C. Berkeley and has been a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and was an executive editor of “Harper’s Magazine.”

I have never really thought about how plants’ (domesticated plants) came to be the way they are. For me, apples, flowers in a floral shop, food are a given. But Pollan delves into how 4 different plants came to be and reflect 4 types of human desires: sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control. I think the examples he uses (apples, tulips, marijuana, and the potato) can be substituted with other “domesticated” plants and other desires that reflect this relationship between humans and nature and vice versa.

Pollan’s writing style is not inaccessible even though what he writes about delves into genetic engineering, Greek mythology and theory, botany, history and psychology.

He focused on the Apollonian vs. Dionysian tendencies represented in the planting of these various plants and how though they are opposites, both need to be present to sustain how these plants and how we are cultivated.

One of the most compelling parts of this book is the chapters on the Potatoe and Control. He discusses Monsanto’s NewLeaf potato and how it is genetically engineered and also the fact that we have probably eaten this potato without even knowing it. It was also disturbing to read that this potato was not even classified under “food” but under “pesticide.”

It’s made me think more about the fruits and vegetables I’m placing in my shopping cart and is also worth reading.

Rating: 3*/5

I somehow got the impression this book would be more scientifically rigid, but it reads more like a Sunday newspaper feature, chock full of anecdotes and first-hand accounts. This isn’t a bad thing and is a pleasnt-enough read, but I have creeping doubts about the factual integrity. The bits about industrial vs organic potato farming were absolutely gripping, however.