- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury; New edition edition (1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 074753389X
- ISBN-13: 978-0747533894
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
446,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #58 in Books > Scientific, Technical & Medical > Environment > Environmental Science
- #59 in Books > Science & Nature > Engineering & Technology > Environmental > Science
Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
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First Sentence
My first garden was a place no grown-up ever knew about, even though it was in the backyard of a quarter-acre suburban plot. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
My first garden was a place no grown-up ever knew about, even though it was in the backyard of a quarter-acre suburban plot. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I love this book and have read it many times. It is not a book about the practical aspects of gardening, but it captures the essence of why some of us like to get out there with a spade and try to improve on our surroundings. It is philisophical, funny, profound and inspiring, just the thing to read during winter.
Format:Paperback
Michael Pollan is writing for an American audience, but this book is, for quite different reasons, fascinating and thought-provoking to a British reader. In Britain, as in most of Europe, there is not a square inch of ground which hasn't been used, managed and often cultivated by man for thousands of years. From the Neolithic hut circles high in the Dartmoor heather to the Saxon coppice-stools still flourishing in the depths of the wood, even the wildest bits of Britain are in a sense, garden; it's something we take for granted. When the first settlers arrived, the (man-made) open glades and groves of New England were regarded as a kind of Eden, an untouched Arcadia, and the Native Americans as archetypes of the Noble Savage. That attitude soon changed, and the rest is history. Only in the mid-nineteenth century, when the European had almost succeeded in obliterating everything natural within US boundaries, did a movement start to preserve, and idolise, what remained of the "Wilderness". Out of this reaction grew an attitude to nature which is curiously schizophrenic. Michael Pollan explores this strange relationship and, through his meditations, the European understands a lot about the culture of the United States.
To an American, the area round his or her house, no matter its size, is a "yard". Gardening is "yard work" - a strange masculine blend of tightly controlling nature while paying lip service to revering it. He explains the history and psychology of the American passion for vast areas of mown grass, stretching without boundaries along the fronts of miles of suburban properties, and explores the social pressure not to deviate from the "American way" in your yard. He reveals to us the extraordinary suspicion of most Americans of the "garden" in the traditional British sense; the unease with any form of cultivation which isn't rigidly aimed at producing neat vegetables or regimented floral displays. He explains how Americans who want a garden of the European type still tend to employ English garden designers, no home-grown equivalent being available. All this is remarkable to a European reader and one turns the pages in astonishment.
Michael Pollan's book is part gardening autobiography, part sociology, part philosophy. It is rich with interesting stuff, and one doesn't need to be a gardener to get a great deal from it. His style is light and his arguments easy to follow; his project, though polemical, never heavy-handed. My four stars are down to the fact that, as an English reader, much of this is rather redundant; there are long passages which come into the category of "preaching to the converted". If I were an American reader I think it would get the fifth star without any doubt.
To an American, the area round his or her house, no matter its size, is a "yard". Gardening is "yard work" - a strange masculine blend of tightly controlling nature while paying lip service to revering it. He explains the history and psychology of the American passion for vast areas of mown grass, stretching without boundaries along the fronts of miles of suburban properties, and explores the social pressure not to deviate from the "American way" in your yard. He reveals to us the extraordinary suspicion of most Americans of the "garden" in the traditional British sense; the unease with any form of cultivation which isn't rigidly aimed at producing neat vegetables or regimented floral displays. He explains how Americans who want a garden of the European type still tend to employ English garden designers, no home-grown equivalent being available. All this is remarkable to a European reader and one turns the pages in astonishment.
Michael Pollan's book is part gardening autobiography, part sociology, part philosophy. It is rich with interesting stuff, and one doesn't need to be a gardener to get a great deal from it. His style is light and his arguments easy to follow; his project, though polemical, never heavy-handed. My four stars are down to the fact that, as an English reader, much of this is rather redundant; there are long passages which come into the category of "preaching to the converted". If I were an American reader I think it would get the fifth star without any doubt.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
44 reviews
78 of 81 people found the following review helpful
A fresh exploration of gardens and what it means to garden.
24 Nov 1996
Format:Paperback
Many of us fall into the trap of thinking that our relationship to the land must be one of either two choices: either we ruthlessly exploit it, with no regard for any but short term use, or we refuse to "meddle" in it at all, letting nature do what it will. _Second Nature_ explores the third alternative, that of working with nature respectfully to produce something that we intend. Believing that our relationship with nature can not be broken down into simple nature versus culture arguments, Pollan explores the overlapping of nature and culture. To that end, he discusses Americans' historical and contemporary ideas of what makes a garden a garden and attitudes toward gardening and wilderness. There is wonderful, thought-provoking commentary on the tyranny of the American lawn, the sexuality of roses, class conflict in the garden, privacy, trees, weeds, and what it means to have a green thumb. Pollan's stories of his own adventures in the garden are interesting and often amusing. His writing is thoughtful and his insight frequently unexpected, as when, in the chapter " 'Made Wild by Pompous Catalogs' ", he points out that garden catalogues are selling not merely seed but their ideas about gardens. Pollan is also highly readable. It is hard not to like an author who says things like "...the Victorian middle class simply couldn't deal with the rose's sexuality" or "...there is a free lunch and its name is photosynthesis". _Second Nature_ is well worth reading
106 of 113 people found the following review helpful
What a fun book!
14 Mar 2000
Format:Paperback
I read this book for a college course, "Religion, Ethics, and the Environment." Most of the books were (as the course title suggests) very heavy texts...yawn. However, when assignments from Pollan's book came up, I would laugh out loud while reading. My classmates & I would discuss the book at any given opportunity, and the bookstore sold twice as many copies as there were students in the class, because we recommended it to everyone. How many philosophy books can you say that about?
Pollan makes his philosophical points with vivid stories from his childhood on Long Island and his adult experiences in his garden. His garden-centered view of nature provides an excellent counterpoint to most environmental philosophy, which has been written from a preservationist's point of view.
54 of 57 people found the following review helpful
What to Buy a Gardener during the Winter
5 Dec 2005
Format:Paperback
I really enjoyed this book. I grew up in a family which gardens, and have my own garden today. I also grew up in an agrarian family, and went on to get a master's in cultural anthropology - all that to say, I suppose I am well-suited to enjoy Pollan's perspectives.
I don't agree with everything he wrote, but I do agree with most of it. And the book is very well-written, very entertaining, and it really makes the reader pause to consider choices made in their own life.
So much of the information about gardening is "how-to", and this book delves into the philosophy, the motivations, the rationales, and the environmental impacts of gardening .... It's written on a higher level, and as worthwhile for readers as the "how to" books, too.
I highly recommned this book - for those who enjoy gardening, and also for those who are concerned about the environment. Pollan will be a good read for both.
I absolutely disagree with the previous reviewer who disparaged Pollan's take on the environmental movement as a whole. Perhaps that person is so deeply enmeshed in environmental causes that he can't see the big picture- but for me, the big picture looks much more as Pollan describes it, than not.
I don't agree with everything he wrote, but I do agree with most of it. And the book is very well-written, very entertaining, and it really makes the reader pause to consider choices made in their own life.
So much of the information about gardening is "how-to", and this book delves into the philosophy, the motivations, the rationales, and the environmental impacts of gardening .... It's written on a higher level, and as worthwhile for readers as the "how to" books, too.
I highly recommned this book - for those who enjoy gardening, and also for those who are concerned about the environment. Pollan will be a good read for both.
I absolutely disagree with the previous reviewer who disparaged Pollan's take on the environmental movement as a whole. Perhaps that person is so deeply enmeshed in environmental causes that he can't see the big picture- but for me, the big picture looks much more as Pollan describes it, than not.
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