Even non-gardeners understand that certain flowers attract bumblebees and use them to spread their pollen. In fact, some flowers depend on this and could not reproduce without the bee's intervention. How are we humans so different from the bumblebees? We think that we control plants: we graft fruit trees, selectively breed tulips, cultivate exotic tropical species in our cold northern climate, and introduce food plants to areas of the world far removed from their original locale. But Michael Pollan has a very different "take" on these facts. Looking at it from the plant's perspective, you could argue that plants have used us (albeit not consciously - this is not science fiction!) to spread their reach. The plants that have adapted to meet human desires are the ones that have endured and expanded.
The book presents four case studies, each describing how certain plants meet specific human desires (hence the "desire" in the title): sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control. Along the way, we learn a great deal of history.
In early America, the apple met our desire for sweetness. Consider that the apple was not a native plant; it is a domesticated version of a wild apple that originated in Kazakhstan. How did it come to be so commonplace in America? Johnny Appleseed is part of the answer (though Pollan presents a very un-romanticized view of John Chapman, the real Johnny Appleseed). The answer, Pollan would argue, is that apples which were sweeter than others, and which met our desire for sweetness, won out over their competition and successfully got humans to select them and propagate them far beyond their native habitat.
Our desire for beauty has led us to selectively breed and plant flowering plants. The tulip is the epitome of a flower which has been developed far from its country of origin - another example of how humans have served the needs of the plant, even while the plant was serving us. Pollan interweaves botany with a description of the Tulipmania that rocked Holland from 1634 to 1637. I suspect most readers will have read little or nothing about this historical episode, but it does not seem outlandish, given the recent gyrations in our own stock market over the past two years.
Some readers may find Pollan's chapter on "intoxication" controversial, and it certainly will challenge stereotypes about marijuana. Pollan argues that every culture that has been able to cultivate some type of mind-altering plant has done so. In some cases humans grow plants which can be fermented to produce alcohol; in other societies we have grown plants that directly affect the mind (like marijuana). Pollan follows the same non-judgmental approach that characterizes the other chapters of the book to discuss how the marijuana plant has been affected by humans. The plant which was part of the standard medical pharmacology at the end of the 19th century became a controlled substance just two generations later. The War on Drugs of the 1980s drove cultivation indoors, and combined with the relaxation of controls in The Netherlands led to the selective breeding of strains which would grow under the most artificial conditions. Clearly he has drawn primarily from sources who would favor the de-criminalization of marijuana - and thus the controversy.
Pollan gives the title "Control" to his chapter on the potato. The spud we know today is vastly different from any of the varieties first cultivated by the Incas centuries ago in South America. He gives a "snapshot" history of how the plant moved east across the Atlantic to become a staple food crop of much of Europe, but then moves his camera back to the United States to illustrate how potatoes are grown for the fast-food market. This will be familiar ground for anyone who has read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, and Pollan has an excellent discusion of the strengths and dangers of genetic engineering.
All of Pollan's "case studies" are very readable: each one covers a great deal of history and botany, all written for the lay-person. It is well-written: he selects good phrases from other writers - like Nietzsche's description of a child who "plays in blissful blindness between the hedges of past and future." (p. 163) Pollan himself creates memorable images, describing the typical gardener being at war with the pests that threaten his or her garden, and regarding the principles of organic gardening as being like the "Geneva Convention" in this conflict.
I would highly recommend this book. It will get you to think differently about the world we live in and the plants that share it with us.