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Michael Pollan
Michael Kevin Pollan (/ˈpɒlən/; born February 6, 1955) is an American journalist, specializing in food, who is a professor and the first Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer at Harvard University. Concurrently, he is the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where in 2020 he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, in which he leads the public-education program.
Pollan is best known for his books that explore the socio-cultural impacts of food, such as The Botany of Desire (2001) and The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), as well as those that explore the impact of drugs on society and consciousness, such as How To Change Your Mind (2018) and This Is Your Mind On Plants (2021). The popularity of his books has led to widespread awareness about various parts of the food system, including the local food movement, understanding the connections between climate change and food, and problems with industrial food. Recent books have made Pollan a popular part of the modern education around psychedelics and other mind-altering foods and plants.
His 2018 book How To Change Your Mind, in particular, is considered a cultural turning point for how it contributed to the revival of positive and accepting attitudes towards the potential benefits of psychedelics.
Pollan was born to a Jewish family on Long Island, New York. He is the son of an author and financial consultant, Stephen Pollan and columnist Corky Pollan. His sister is actress Tracy Pollan.
After studying at Mansfield College, Oxford, through 1975, Pollan received a B.A. in English from Bennington College in 1977 and an M.A. in English from Columbia University in 1981.
In The Botany of Desire, Pollan explores the concept of co-evolution, specifically of humankind's evolutionary relationship with four plants—apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes—from the dual perspectives of humans and the plants. He uses case examples that fit the archetype of four basic human desires, demonstrating how each of these botanical species are selectively grown, bred, and genetically engineered. The apple reflects the desire for sweetness, the tulip for beauty, marijuana for intoxication, and the potato for control.
Throughout the book, Pollan explores the narrative of his own experience with each of the plants, which he then intertwines with a well-researched exploration into their social history. Each section presents a unique element of human domestication, or the "human bumblebee" as Pollan calls it. These range from the true story of Johnny Appleseed to Pollan's first-hand research with sophisticated marijuana hybrids in Amsterdam, to the alarming and paradigm-shifting possibilities of genetically engineered potatoes. Pollan is critical of industrial monoculture claiming it leads to crops less able to defend themselves against herbivores and requiring large amounts of pesticides and fertilizers which upsets the natural ecosystem.[citation needed]
In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan describes four basic ways that human societies have obtained food: the current industrial system, the big organic operation, the local self-sufficient farm, and the hunter-gatherer. Pollan follows each of these processes—from a group of plants photosynthesizing calories through a series of intermediate stages, ultimately into a meal. Along the way, he suggests that there is a fundamental tension between the logic of nature and the logic of human industry, that the way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world, and that industrial eating obscures crucially important ecological relationships and connections. On December 10, 2006, The New York Times named The Omnivore's Dilemma one of the five best nonfiction books of the year. On May 8, 2007, the James Beard Foundation named The Omnivore's Dilemma its 2007 winner for the best food writing. It was the book of focus for the University of Pennsylvania's Reading Project in 2007, and the book of choice for Washington State University's Common Reading Program in 2009–10.
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Michael Pollan
Michael Kevin Pollan (/ˈpɒlən/; born February 6, 1955) is an American journalist, specializing in food, who is a professor and the first Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer at Harvard University. Concurrently, he is the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where in 2020 he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, in which he leads the public-education program.
Pollan is best known for his books that explore the socio-cultural impacts of food, such as The Botany of Desire (2001) and The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), as well as those that explore the impact of drugs on society and consciousness, such as How To Change Your Mind (2018) and This Is Your Mind On Plants (2021). The popularity of his books has led to widespread awareness about various parts of the food system, including the local food movement, understanding the connections between climate change and food, and problems with industrial food. Recent books have made Pollan a popular part of the modern education around psychedelics and other mind-altering foods and plants.
His 2018 book How To Change Your Mind, in particular, is considered a cultural turning point for how it contributed to the revival of positive and accepting attitudes towards the potential benefits of psychedelics.
Pollan was born to a Jewish family on Long Island, New York. He is the son of an author and financial consultant, Stephen Pollan and columnist Corky Pollan. His sister is actress Tracy Pollan.
After studying at Mansfield College, Oxford, through 1975, Pollan received a B.A. in English from Bennington College in 1977 and an M.A. in English from Columbia University in 1981.
In The Botany of Desire, Pollan explores the concept of co-evolution, specifically of humankind's evolutionary relationship with four plants—apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes—from the dual perspectives of humans and the plants. He uses case examples that fit the archetype of four basic human desires, demonstrating how each of these botanical species are selectively grown, bred, and genetically engineered. The apple reflects the desire for sweetness, the tulip for beauty, marijuana for intoxication, and the potato for control.
Throughout the book, Pollan explores the narrative of his own experience with each of the plants, which he then intertwines with a well-researched exploration into their social history. Each section presents a unique element of human domestication, or the "human bumblebee" as Pollan calls it. These range from the true story of Johnny Appleseed to Pollan's first-hand research with sophisticated marijuana hybrids in Amsterdam, to the alarming and paradigm-shifting possibilities of genetically engineered potatoes. Pollan is critical of industrial monoculture claiming it leads to crops less able to defend themselves against herbivores and requiring large amounts of pesticides and fertilizers which upsets the natural ecosystem.[citation needed]
In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan describes four basic ways that human societies have obtained food: the current industrial system, the big organic operation, the local self-sufficient farm, and the hunter-gatherer. Pollan follows each of these processes—from a group of plants photosynthesizing calories through a series of intermediate stages, ultimately into a meal. Along the way, he suggests that there is a fundamental tension between the logic of nature and the logic of human industry, that the way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world, and that industrial eating obscures crucially important ecological relationships and connections. On December 10, 2006, The New York Times named The Omnivore's Dilemma one of the five best nonfiction books of the year. On May 8, 2007, the James Beard Foundation named The Omnivore's Dilemma its 2007 winner for the best food writing. It was the book of focus for the University of Pennsylvania's Reading Project in 2007, and the book of choice for Washington State University's Common Reading Program in 2009–10.
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