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Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire now on TV

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I recently had the opportunity to watch The Botany of Desire, a two-hour special that will premiere on PBS on October 28 at 8pm. You should make a note of that date, because you won’t want to miss this.

Subtitled “A Plant’s Eye View of the World,” The Botany of Desire is based on the best-selling Michael Pollan book of the same name. It examines the unique relationship between humans and plants, with the premise that plants use us for their purposes just as we use them. Linking our fundamental desires for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control with the plants that gratify them — the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato — The Botany of Desire shows that humans are intricately woven into the web of nature, not standing outside it, as so many of us like to believe.

This is a beautifully-shot film that is as fascinating as it is entertaining. Watch it on PBS on Wednesday, October 28 at 8pm, or buy it online.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. I was quite fascinated to learn that apple seeds do not produce the same kind of apples as the apple they came from. Rather, the seeds will produce an entirely different apple, rarely with the same qualities and many quite sour. You have to graft the tree of a known apple to get more of them.

  3. Georgia – I haven’t read it! But it’s been on my list for years.

    Ben – Full of fascinating facts, eh? I liked how apples were considered evil (due to their importance to hard cider making) until rebranded as health food.

  6. Haven’t read the book (yet) but really enjoyed the PBS special. Terrific presentation of fascinating facts I’d bet most people don’t know about our role in nature and the lengths we’ll go to to enjoy plants such as apples, tulips, potatoes and even marijuana. And, unlike a lot of films on topics like this which often seem one-sided, it didn’t come off agenda-driven. Recommended!

  7. Pollan is a master! Pollan and Salatin are two that must be read. This book was VERY GOOD and far more in depth than the docu. However, the documentary was good, too.

  8. Also, speaking of hard cider…I wasn’t ever a fan until I recently traveled to England and Ireland…MAN oh MAN, big fan now! They ahve the BEST hard apple cider.

  9. The psychology and the economics, particularly the mechanics of the futures “exchanges” that were set up, where trading was done just about as irrationally, as emotionally, and sporadically, wildly as the futures on securities are traded today. So interesting to see this being done about, among all things possible to trade, tulip bulbs.

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