The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins

by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing Narrated by Susan Ericksen

Overview

Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world-and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. In all its contradictions, matsutake offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial question: what manages to live in the ruins we have made?



A tale of diversity within our damaged landscapes, The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore the unexpected corners of capitalism. Here, we witness the varied and peculiar worlds of matsutake commerce: the worlds of Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, industrial forests, Yi Chinese goat herders, Finnish nature guides, and more. These companions also lead us into fungal ecologies and forest histories to better understand the promise of cohabitation in a time of massive human destruction.

Editorial Reviews

Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

"Provocative. . . . Beginning with an account of the matsutake mushroom, Tsing follows the threads of this organism to tease out an astonishing number of insights about life in the Anthropocene."

From the Publisher

Winner of the 2016 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, Society for Humanistic Anthropology

Winner of the 2016 Gregory Bateson Prize, The Society for Cultural Anthropology

Finalist for the 2016 Northern California Book Awards in General Nonfiction, Northern California Book Reviewers

One of Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2015 in Business and Economics

One of Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2015 in Science

One of Flavorwire’s 10 Best Books by Academic Publishers in 2015

One of Times Higher Education’s Best Books of 2015

"A poetic and remarkably fertile exploration of the relationship between human beings and the natural environment, and what can still be done to stem its rapid deterioration."—-Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian

"There’s a double meaning to Tsing’s title. The mushroom is at the end of the known world because it’s hard to find, a secret tucked deep in the forest. But she’s also hinting at the end of the world as we know it, given our instinct for extracting as much from the earth as we can. Humanity has never seemed so finely calibrated and rationalized: the seamless journey of a very expensive mushroom from nature to a dinner plate tells this story."—-Hua Hsu, The New Yorker

"Highly original. . . . This book brilliantly turns the commerce and ecology of this most rare mushroom into a modern parable of post-industrial survival and environmental renewal."—-Peter D. Smith, The Guardian

"[A] thought-provoking meditation on capitalism, resilience, and survival."—-E. Ce Miller, Bustle.com

"This was a year of many of books about the Anthropocene—the name now frequently invoked to describe an era of incalculable human impact on geological and ecological conditions. Few of these books are as focused and useful as Tsing's."—-Jonathan Sturgeon, Flavorwire

"It’s an anthropological and environmental study, but it’s almost written like a novel."—-Cate Le Bon, The Guardian

"[A] rather remarkable book, both in its empathetic meditations on ‘companion species' and in its experimental mode of history writing."—-James Graham, Metropolis

"A fascinating account of the biology, ecology, genetics and anthropology of the world's most valued mushroom."—-Louise O. Fresco, Times Higher Education

"A beautiful, humble book. . . . Anthropology at its best."—-Darwin BondGraham, East Bay Express

"[Tsing] writes clearheaded prose with an ear for lyrical phrases. . . . [The Mushroom at the End of the World] is a wonderful meditation on how humans shape and distort the natural landscape, and in return, are shaped and distorted by a wildness of their own making."—-Casey Sanchez, Santa Fe New Mexican

"[An] extraordinary book."—-Jim Igoe, American Anthropologist

"Tsing's extraordinary book provides an intimate account of the ecology of the matsutake and the work of the pickers, entrepreneurs and gourmets who bring it into the global economy. As such, The Mushroom at the End of the World is about much more than mushrooms. This is a book, perhaps above all, about the experience of living in precarious times and about life at the edges or in the cracks of the world system of capitalism. . . . A remarkable and elegantly conceived book that well rewards close attention."—-John Miller, Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism

"The publisher can really be congratulated. Rarely can one immerse oneself into an academic work with informative and sensuous pictures and figures that set a pace and allow the reader to explore the senses of smelling, grabbing, searching and walking. Tsing's book is not a conclusive analysis of post-capitalist processes but an outline for living sensuously, creatively and freely with each other."—-Jenni Mölkäken, Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society

"An outstanding book that speaks to core questions in contemporary geography. . . . The Mushroom at the End of the World abundantly deserves the praises and awards it has garnered since its publication, and I could not endorse it more strongly."—-William E. O'Brien, American Association of Geographers Review of Books

"The book will be of considerable interest at the complex intersection of social science, natural science and humanities. That is where anthropology is ideally located but achieving this is rather rare. . . . Without ever lecturing at the reader or hammering on some academic conviction, the book instead reveals a range of things that are variously urgent and pleasant, keeping ecological disaster in sight while allowing plenty of time for curiosity, diversity and surprise."—-Hjorleifur Jonsson, Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2015-06-30
An unusually rewarding meditation on how a wild mushroom can help us see the world's ruined condition after the advent of modern capitalism. The matsutake—a beloved species of mushroom that fetches high prices in Japan—is a survivor that grows inches below ground in deeply human-disturbed forests. Difficult to find and impossible to cultivate, it is said to have been the first living thing to emerge from the devastated landscape of Hiroshima. Bursting with ideas and observations, Tsing's (Anthropology/Univ. of California, Santa Cruz; Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection, 2004, etc.) highly original ethnographic study follows this spicy-smelling mushroom's global commodity chain, from the forests of Oregon's Cascade Mountains and elsewhere to Tokyo auction markets. She recounts her interviews with mushroom pickers, scientists, and entrepreneurs in the United States, Asia, and elsewhere to explore the matsutake's commerce and ecology. "We are stuck with the problem of living despite economic and ecological ruination," she writes. "Neither tales of progress nor of ruin tell us how to think about collaborative survival. It is time to pay attention to mushroom picking. Not that this will save us—but it might open our imaginations." In prose that is both scholarly and deeply personal, Tsing shows how the matsutake, emblematic of survival amid changing circumstances, thrives in transformative collaboration with trees and other species and points the way toward coexisting with environmental disturbance ("the uncontrolled lives of mushrooms are a gift—and a guide—when the controlled world we thought we had fails"). The author covers a staggering array of topics, from freedom, foraging, and forestry to DNA research and the music of John Cage. Consistently fascinating, her story of the picking and selling of this wild mushroom becomes a wonderful window on contemporary life. Serious readers will delight in these pages.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170823871
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	11/28/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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