The Mushroom at the End of the World - by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"A poetic and remarkably fertile exploration of the relationship between human beings and the natural environment."--Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian
"I'm very grateful to have this book."--Ursula K. Le Guin
The acclaimed and award-winning book about what a rare mushroom can teach us about sustaining life on a fragile planet
A Flavorwire and Times Higher Education Book of the Year

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.

By investigating one of the world's most sought-after fungi, The Mushroom at the End of the World presents an original examination into the relation between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival within multispecies landscapes, the prerequisite for continuing life on earth.

Review Quotes

"One of Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2015 in Science"

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

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

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

"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

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

"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

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

"[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

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

"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

"An original analysis of the value regime of our current capitalist economy. . . . Tsing's contribution to the debate on valuation and evaluation is important in that it points to the relevance, both in research and in politics, of noticing the nonscalable value regimes embedded in life processes."---Laura Centemeri, Tecnoscienza: Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies

"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

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

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

"One of Times Higher Education's Best Books of 2015"

"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."-- "Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory"

"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

"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

"Through careful study of matsutake, [Tsing] discovers connections to other objects that create dynamic and moving webs across time and space. The methodological carefulness and precision, even on a sensuous level, is impressive. . . . The mushroom poses difficult questions about responsibility. . . . Tsing's well-researched and thought-provoking book is a testament to that."---Jenny Jarlsdotter Wikström, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities

"Tsing weaves an adventurous tale. . . . Her engrossing account of intersecting cultures and nature's resilience offers a fresh perspective on modernity and progress."-- "Publisher's Weekly"

"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

"Unusually rewarding. . . . Bursting with ideas and observations, Tsing's highly original ethnographic study follows this spicy smelling mushroom's global commodity chain. . . . Consistently fascinating, [Tsing's] story of the picking and selling of this wild mushroom becomes a wonderful window on contemporary life."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

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

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

About the Author

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection and In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginality in an Out-of-the-Way Place (both Princeton).