In "The Botany of Desire - A Plant's - Eye View of the World", the author Michael Pollan attempts to prove that plants have used humans for their own survival just as we've used them for the same purpose and in other ways. Thus the relationship between plants and man is based on reciprocity rather than a one sided notion of man's power of "domestication".
Pollan says the four key elements plants use to get humans to work on their behalf are sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control, and he elaborates by giving an example in each case.
While I wouldn't go so far as to ascribe a purposeful and mindful survival strategy to plants, as the author seems to do, I greatly enjoy the book for looking at the relationship between man and nature from nature's perspective. The message of the book touches me because it puts man in a less exalted and domineering position, and in this sense the book is a delightful putdown on man's vastly exaggerrated and laughable sense of his own importance. I don't like putdowns, but this particular one finds me nodding my head and smiling in agreement. Here are excepts from a few book reviews:
The New York Times Book Review: " Pollan has a wide-ranging intellect, and eager grasp of evolutionary biology and a subversive streak that helps him root out some wonderfully counterintuitive points. His prose both shimmers and snaps, and he has a knack for finding perfect quotes in the oddest places...Best of all, Pollan really loves plants."
Los Angeles Times: "A whimsical, literary romp through man's perpetually frustrating and always unpredictable relationship with nature."
The New York Times: "Pollan shines a light on our own nature as well as our implication in the natural world."
The Wall Street Journal: "Unitl I read Michael Pollan's original, provocative and charming "The Botany of Desire", I had never managed to get inside the soul of a plant."
Other books by Michael Pollan: "Second Nature" and "A Place of My Own".
Photo location: Baan Hintoom, Uthaitani province
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