Título: This Is Your Mind on Plants
Autor: Michael Pollan
Sinopse: 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. Acabamento: Hardcover. Peso: 200g. Dimensões: 16.26 x 23.88 x 1.4.
Contexto da obra
Dentro do catálogo, este livro pode ser situado a partir do tema, da autoria e da proposta editorial. “This Is Your Mind on Plants”, de Michael Pollan, publicado pela editora Penguin Usa, em 2021 e com 288 páginas, integra a categoria Ecologia. Esse enquadramento pode tornar mais clara a proposta do livro e o tipo de interesse que ele costuma despertar.
Editora: Penguin Usa
Páginas: 288
Ano: 2021
Edição:
Linguagem: Inglês
ISBN:
ISBN13: 9780593296905
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora PENGUIN USA costumam trazer narrativas que transitam entre o imaginativo e o analítico, com histórias que exploram desde mitos pessoais até investigações científicas do comportamento humano. O catálogo oferece experiências de leitura que mesclam ritmo envolvente e reflexões profundas, como em relatos que combinam fantasia e realidade, ou em ensaios que desvendam padrões invisíveis da vida cotidiana. Há obras que exploram conflitos íntimos, dilemas morais e sociais, e outras que apresentam estudos culturais e históricos com linguagem acessível. O tom varia entre o narrativo e o didático, com textos que podem ser tanto emotivos e pessoais quanto informativos e estruturados.
