Review by Choice Review
Chapter by chapter, seed by seed, Hanson (a conservation biologist) tells the surprising stories of how seeds influenced the outcome of significant historical events, from the growth in the popularity of coffee and chocolate to the development of the Stealth Bomber. Written in an engaging style, the book flows nicely; each chapter leads into the next, so the book is hard to put down. Just as seeds have influenced life on Earth, evolution has influenced their development. The author reveals a number of ongoing mysteries, both scientific and historical, in the quest to understand why seeds have been so successful. For example, caffeine acts as both reward and poison in a delicate balance where bees, like morning commuters, line up for their appropriate dose of the drug. According to one expert, caffeine has become the drug that makes the modern world possible. It can also harm the seeds it serves to spread by inhibiting seed germination. Hanson argues that evolutionary intelligence finds the right balance--evolution acts like a gardener, saving the most successful experiments. From cotton to orchids, the future of seeds looks promising. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Ted Johnson, Prescott Valley Public Library
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
"OH, NO!" I thought as I gazed at Thor Hanson's book with pictures of seeds all lined up on the jacket in boring, well-spaced symmetry. If "The Triumph of Seeds" had really been about how the little acorn makes the mighty oak, I might have screamed. But the genius of Hanson's fascinating, inspiring and entertaining book stems from the fact that it is not about how all kinds of things grow from seeds; it is about the seeds themselves. Hanson, the author of "Feathers" and "The Impenetrable Forest," takes one of the least-impressive-looking natural objects and reveals a life of elegance and wonder. These little pods can fly, spin, bury themselves, float across oceans, sleep for a thousand years, poison or seduce - a nearly infinite variety of poetic solutions to the hard and gritty question of survival. This is, in fact, the natural order at its most thrilling - seeds taking on the same issues of evolution and survival as a tiger, a whale or, let's not forget, a human. I am constantly asked how I come up with the quirky subjects I write about. I always answer that I never choose quirky subjects: I choose subjects that I think are important. Clearly, Thor Hanson thinks his subject is important. Although he is a storyteller by nature, he also charms us with an infectious enthusiasm. The reader feels that Hanson cannot wait to tell us what comes next. I loved his admonition, at the start, to be sure to read all the endnotes. "They are the only place in the book," he tells us with great urgency, "where you will hear about gomphotheres, slippery water or the piper's maggot." It sounds silly to say that you wouldn't want to miss the gomphotheres, but you actually wouldn't. Hanson apologizes for stashing so much good material in the notes but says they are nuggets that did not fit in the narrative. This is the key to his success. Like all good writers, he understands narrative - that a book, at its best, is a story, and that this one is built by spinning stories within stories. They are fun, sometimes they are funny, and they are always fascinating and readable. The overarching tale is one of survival: how these seeds through trial and error have developed an incredibly complex and varied assortment of survival strategies for a singular obsession - to ensure the continuation of the species. Along the way we learn about ratproof shells, the purpose of the hot taste of pepper, the role of caffeine in coffee beans, why fruit tastes so good (and why it doesn't when the seeds aren't ready for germination). We learn how to grow a seedless watermelon, and about seeds that crossed an ocean, and a seed that was dormant for two millenniums before sprouting - which brings us to the concept of dormancy. As Hanson puts it, "dormancy allows seeds to disperse through time." This is Darwinism at its most fundamental, put forward as a good story. What I have never understood about creationists is that myths are usually clung to because they are better than the prosaic truth, but in this case the real story is so much more poetic and stirring and wildly surprising than the comparatively dull one of Genesis. Darwin said he was not refuting the story of creation, just explaining how it worked. He wrote, "There is grandeur in this view of life." Before deciding about pipelines, carbon emissions, and war and peace, people need to read Darwin and other volumes on how life on this planet works. You could even have some fun and start with Hanson's engaging book. These little pods can fly, spin, sleep for a thousand years, poison or seduce. MARK KURLANSKY'S most recent book is a collection of short stories, "City Beasts: Fourteen Stories of Uninvited Wildlife."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 19, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Conservation biologist Hanson follows Feathers (2011) with a book inspired, in part, by his young son's preternatural fascination with seeds. Jocular and entertaining in his dispensing of remarkable facts about these little vessels of life-to-be, Hanson shares tales of his Central American field work (snakes and all) studying the stone-hard almendo seed, which grows into a long-lived, 150-foot, rain forest giant supporting an entire, seething ecosystem. This inspires Hanson to vividly describe the evolutionary virtual arms race between seeds and seed-eaters. As he visits with seed experts around the world, Hanson marvels over the amazing energetics of seeds, the evolutionary impact of our ancestors' consumption of seeds, especially cooked grains, and the civilization-shaping political power of grain. He also chronicles the global impact of coffee and chili peppers and seeds' capacity for dormancy, including one excavated 2000-year-old date palm seed that grew into a 10-foot tree in Israel. From high-tech, high-security seed banks bracing for climate change to the story of the gum extracted from guar seeds that is used in everything from ice cream to fracking, this upbeat and mind-expanding celebration of the might of seeds is popular science writing as its finest.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Conservation biologist Hanson's new book showcases an even more approachable style than his 2011 Feathers. Using a personalized viewpoint derived from his backyard lab and dissertation research in Costa Rica with the almendro tree, as well as visits with specialists worldwide, he describes how seeds nourish, unite, endure, defend, and travel. What is a seed? A potential baby plant with a protective coat and food to start growing. With that in mind, and a little humor, the author includes paleontology, evolution, a 2,000-year-old seed that grew a tree called Methuselah, seed banks and botanical gardens, and seeds that are both useful to and harmful to humans. He discusses seeds' shapes and sizes; how they are distributed by water, air, animals, and birds; how they inspire us (think flight); and how they protect themselves. Jane Goodall's recent Seeds of Hope has a chapter on seeds and mentions some of the same items found here, but Hanson's work also includes a solid glossary and bibliography that are not offered in Goodall's title. VERDICT Recommended for gardeners and readers of natural history and history of science.-Jean E. Crampon, Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, Lib. (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
"From tropical rain forests to alpine meadows and arctic tundra, seed plants dominate landscapes and define ecosystems." In fact, they make up more than 90 percent of land flora.Having caught our attention, conservation biologist Hanson (Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle, 2011) proceeds to tell how this happened. Traveling the world to interview experts without ignoring his own research, the author writes a delightful account of the origins, physiologies and human uses of a vast variety of objects that plants employ to make more plants. Long ago, ferns and mosses covered the Earth and reproduced by releasing clouds of tiny spores. These days, we encounter them as coal plus a scattering of survivors. Far more robust than spores, seeds are a dazzling evolutionary triumph with, Hanson stresses, five distinct qualities. They nourish a plant's early life with either starch (grasses, grains) or fat and protein (nuts, legumes, beans). Humans have co-opted these nutrients as the foundation of our diet; modern civilization requires them. They unite. Seeds are the product of sexual reproduction, an enormous, creative evolutionary advance. They endure from months to decades, waiting for the right combination of elements to trigger germination. Centuries ago, human manipulation of dormant seeds made agriculture possible. They defend the embryonic plant with shells, husks, rinds and chemicals. Humans convert these to pharmaceuticals, enjoy them in a variety of applications (caffeine, peppers, chocolate) and sometimes get sick from them (hemlock, strychnine). Finally, seeds travel. Whether by wind or water or the guts of animals that eat them, this allows plants and the humans that follow them to occupy every habitat on Earth. "[F]or all the fascinating tales of seeds in nature," writes Hanson, "one of their hallmarks is that we don't have to look far to find them." A fine addition to the single-issue science genre. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
