This Is Your Mind on Plants | Free Book
“Expert storytelling . . . [Pollan] masterfully elevates a series of big questions about drugs, plants and humans that are likely to leave readers thinking in new ways.” —New York Times Book Review
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Pollan, a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants—and the equally powerful taboos.
Of all the things humans rely on plants for—sustenance, beauty, medicine, fragrance, flavor, fiber—surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. Take coffee and tea: People around the world rely on caffeine to sharpen their minds. But we do not usually think of caffeine as a drug, or our daily use as an addiction, because it is legal and socially acceptable. So, then, what is a “drug”? And why, for example, is making tea from the leaves of a tea plant acceptable, but making tea from a seed head of an opium poppy a federal crime?
In This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs—opium, caffeine, and mescaline—and throws the fundamental strangeness, and arbitrariness, of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs while consuming (or, in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such great lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and then why do we fence that universal desire with laws and customs and fraught feelings?
In this unique blend of history, science, and memoir, as well as participatory journalism, Pollan examines and experiences these plants from several very different angles and contexts, and shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively—as a drug, whether licit or illicit. But that is one of the least interesting things you can say about these plants, Pollan shows, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. Based in part on an essay published almost twenty-five years ago, this groundbreaking and singular consideration of psychoactive plants, and our attraction to them through time, holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds, and our entanglement with the natural world.
In The Press
“Delightful . . . [This Is Your Mind On Plants] aims to
collapse the distinctions between legal and illegal, medical and
recreational, exotic and everyday, by appealing to the principle that
unites the three: the affinities between plant biochemistry and the
human mind.” —New York Review of Books
“[A] thoughtful study . . . As the U.S.’s drug policies
become less punitive, [Pollan] argues, we should think more clearly
about substances we’ve come to depend on.” —The New Yorker
“[A] wonderful and compelling read that will leave you
thinking long after you set it down . . . Pollan is an astonishingly
good writer, at times intimate and vulnerable, at times curious and
expository, always compelling and credible. Reading his writing can be
kind of like taking a psychedelic—a literary onomatopoeia.”
—Washington Post
“Pollan is a mindful and enthusiastic psychonaut. He is also a gifted
writer, who synthesizes unruly social histories and wreathes them
around his own drug-taking experiences. And he articulates these
experiences with great insight and eloquence.”
—The New Republic
“Expert storytelling
. . . [Pollan] masterfully elevates a series of big questions about
drugs, plants and humans that are likely to leave readers thinking in
new ways.” —New York Times Book Review
“Fascinating . . . This Is Your Mind On Plants has
much to offer its readers, whether they are curious about the
plant-based adventures of others or the science of substances at work
in their own minds. With historical depth, political punch, and
narrative exuberance, Pollan's book sounds a call to reimagine
society's relationship with psychoactive plants.”
—Boston Globe
"Pollan’s insatiable appetite to learn every possible
morsel about the subject on which he is writing is a gift that has
proved itself with best-seller after best-seller . . . . Anchored
by a refreshing willingness to expose his own blind spots, [This Is Your Mind On Plants] is an engrossing, plant-powered blend of general history,
contemporary reporting and potent self-reflection."—San Francisco Chronicle
“The author of How to Change Your Mind turns his
attention to three consciousness-altering drugs—opium, mescaline and
caffeine (yes, it’s a drug)—in this eye-opening exploration.”
—People
“[H]ighly engaging reading . . .
Pollan’s writing always has a personal aspect to it, but in his latest
work he takes an even more central role in the narrative, and his book
is the better for it.” —The Daily Beast
“Pollan weaves together three separately engaging stories
in a pleasantly meandering style, deftly using his personal
experiences with each compound as a jumping-off point for small forays
into anthropology, history, politics, psychology, molecular biology,
and neuroscience. Even the most distracted reader will come away with
an understanding of the physical effects of the spotlighted substances
as well as their cultural significance.” —Science
“The omnivorously curious Pollan pivots off his
provocative How to Change Your Mind with an enthralling odyssey
into a trio of mind-altering drugs found in plants: opium, caffeine,
and mescaline. In this wide-ranging, deliciously written study, he
asks, why does one power us up each morning while the other two are
shrouded in taboo? You’ll never look at a Starbucks Pike’s Peak the
same way again.” —Oprah Daily
“This Is Your Mind on Plants is an entertaining
blend of memoir, history and social commentary that illustrates
Pollan’s ability to be both scientific and personal. By relying on
contextual history and focusing on three popular, if misunderstood,
drugs, Pollan challenges common views on what mind-altering drugs are
and what they can accomplish.” —BookPage (starred review)
“Pollan is a master of breaking down complex science into
an engaging story and challenging long-held societal beliefs. His
newest offering, which follows his examination of the science of
psychedelics in 2018’s How to Change Your Mind, aims to unpack
our ideas about what constitutes a ‘drug’ and, fundamentally, why we
seek them.” —TIME
“Building on his lysergically drenched book
How to Change Your Mind (2018), Pollan looks at three
plant-based drugs and the mental effects they can produce. . . . A
lucid (in the sky with diamonds) look at the hows, whys, and
occasional demerits of altering one’s mind.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
- Title: This Is Your Mind on Plants | Free Book
- Author: Steven
- Created at : 2024-10-21 05:04:53
- Updated at : 2024-10-26 22:27:43
- Link: https://novels-ebooks.techidaily.com/210158725-9780593296912-this-is-your-mind-on-plants/
- License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.