The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World.

MICHAEL POLLAN 

Could it be that certain plants have manipulated us humans for their own gain? Pollan thinks so, and he attempts to prove his point by focusing on four plants and four human desires. The apple defines sweetness, the tulip exemplifies beauty, marijuana represents intoxication, and the potato shows control. For instance, tulips were once such a passion in Holland that a man paid for a single bulb a price equivalent to the cost of an Amsterdam townhouse on a canal. In Potlan's investigation of the rise of apples in the United States, he offers a surprisingly non-Disney portrait of Johnny Appleseed. The author reveals how most of the apples that the actual John Chapman planted were good only for hard cider--a product the pioneers welcomed but not what we think of as Johnny Appleseed's contribution to America. By blending such anecdotes into a tapestry of evolutionary biology, botany, and anthropology, Pollan eloquently makes a case for the myriad ways that plants have coevolved with people. Originally published in hardcover in 2001. RH, 2001, 271 p., paperback, $13.95.