Michael Pollan, a writer for the New York Times Magazine, has a new book titled The Botany of Desire. He posits that not only people grow and domesticate plants, but that plants have also formed a reciprocal relationship with humans. Pollan links four fundamental human desires--sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato.
Pollan illustrates his hypothesis with stories about ways in which these plants have evolved to satisfy humankind's most basic yearnings. He finally asks, "Who is really domesticating whom?"
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