What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make
What a Mushroom Lives For pushes today's mushroom renaissance in compelling new directions. For centuries, Western science has promoted a human- and animal-centric framework of what counts as action, agency, movement, and behavior. But, as Michael Hathaway shows, the world-making capacities of mushrooms radically challenge this orthodoxy by revealing the lively dynamism of all forms of life.



The book tells the fascinating story of one particularly prized species, the matsutake, and the astonishing ways it is silently yet powerfully shaping worlds, from the Tibetan plateau to the mushrooms' final destination in Japan. Many Tibetan and Yi people have dedicated their lives to picking and selling this mushroom-a delicacy that drives a multibillion-dollar global trade network and that still grows only in the wild, despite scientists' intensive efforts to cultivate it in urban labs. But this is far from a simple story of humans exploiting a passive, edible commodity. Rather, the book reveals the complex, symbiotic ways that mushrooms, plants, humans, and other animals interact. It explores how the world looks to the mushrooms.



A surprise-filled journey into science and human culture, this exciting and provocative book shows how fungi shape our planet and our lives in strange, diverse, and often unimaginable ways.
1140328179
What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make
What a Mushroom Lives For pushes today's mushroom renaissance in compelling new directions. For centuries, Western science has promoted a human- and animal-centric framework of what counts as action, agency, movement, and behavior. But, as Michael Hathaway shows, the world-making capacities of mushrooms radically challenge this orthodoxy by revealing the lively dynamism of all forms of life.



The book tells the fascinating story of one particularly prized species, the matsutake, and the astonishing ways it is silently yet powerfully shaping worlds, from the Tibetan plateau to the mushrooms' final destination in Japan. Many Tibetan and Yi people have dedicated their lives to picking and selling this mushroom-a delicacy that drives a multibillion-dollar global trade network and that still grows only in the wild, despite scientists' intensive efforts to cultivate it in urban labs. But this is far from a simple story of humans exploiting a passive, edible commodity. Rather, the book reveals the complex, symbiotic ways that mushrooms, plants, humans, and other animals interact. It explores how the world looks to the mushrooms.



A surprise-filled journey into science and human culture, this exciting and provocative book shows how fungi shape our planet and our lives in strange, diverse, and often unimaginable ways.
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What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make

What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make

by Michael J. Hathaway, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Narrated by Christopher Grove

Unabridged — 8 hours, 51 minutes

What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make

What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make

by Michael J. Hathaway, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Narrated by Christopher Grove

Unabridged — 8 hours, 51 minutes

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Overview

What a Mushroom Lives For pushes today's mushroom renaissance in compelling new directions. For centuries, Western science has promoted a human- and animal-centric framework of what counts as action, agency, movement, and behavior. But, as Michael Hathaway shows, the world-making capacities of mushrooms radically challenge this orthodoxy by revealing the lively dynamism of all forms of life.



The book tells the fascinating story of one particularly prized species, the matsutake, and the astonishing ways it is silently yet powerfully shaping worlds, from the Tibetan plateau to the mushrooms' final destination in Japan. Many Tibetan and Yi people have dedicated their lives to picking and selling this mushroom-a delicacy that drives a multibillion-dollar global trade network and that still grows only in the wild, despite scientists' intensive efforts to cultivate it in urban labs. But this is far from a simple story of humans exploiting a passive, edible commodity. Rather, the book reveals the complex, symbiotic ways that mushrooms, plants, humans, and other animals interact. It explores how the world looks to the mushrooms.



A surprise-filled journey into science and human culture, this exciting and provocative book shows how fungi shape our planet and our lives in strange, diverse, and often unimaginable ways.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Nominee for the James Beard Media Award in Reference, History, and Scholarship"

"Winner of the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes, BC and Yukon Book Prizes"

"Winner of the Labrecque-Lee Book Prize, Canadian Anthropology Society"

"Few readers, I suspect, have ever considered fungi to be sentient, but Michael Hathaway . . . argues that mushrooms (as well as plants and other organisms widely considered as passive automatons), though not exactly conscious, nevertheless 'engage their surroundings in a dynamic way.' . . . The takeaway, Hathaway advises, should at least be a renewed appreciation of the interconnectedness of all forms of life, flora, fauna, and 'funga,' and a realization that the world is 'made and remade through relationships.'"—-Laurence A. Marschall, Natural History

Choice

"This book will be valuable to social scientists and ecologists, and essential to philosophers of human-fungi relationships."

Product Details

BN ID: 2940176043037
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Publication date: 04/26/2022
Edition description: Unabridged
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