The Mushroom at the End of the World - Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing / ISBN 9780691220550 / 331-page paperback from Princeton UP *** "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 "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, New Yorker What a rare mushroom can teach us about sustaining life on a fragile planet Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world―and a weed that gr