anna tsing mushroom at the end of the world

The author my have been trying to contrast this with the determinacy of capitalism, but this didn't come through for me, and I'm not sure either.As the subtitle suggests, the author is a subscriber to the Myth of Progress. Yes-the world is fundamentally indeterminant, but that in itself is not much of a rhetorical foundation. But in the context of this book, it felt so vague, slippery, and hollow so as to muddle her thesis as opposed to strengthening it. The term that stands out to me the most is 'indeterminacy.' It seems like the author would like to make a point about hazard, about risk, about uncertainty and possibility. Now that I've heard so much about it, I am interested in tasting it someday.The author latches onto to some themes in the book which I didn't find illustrative. The author goes as far as to say that white people don't like the mushroom, but after speaking to a few white friends, it sounds like this is an over-generalization. That said, this book is less about fungi, and more a social anthropology of people that harvest the matsutake mushroom in the Pacific Northwest of the United States for export to Japan.I had heard the name a few times, but before reading this book, I knew very little about matsutake.

I've been in the permaculture world for over a decade, where the kingdom has a strong presence. I heard about this book from three sources, including Adam Tooze's Substack, before deciding to get a copy.I love fungi. 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. 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. 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?Ī 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. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world-and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere.

Anna tsing mushroom at the end of the world