Book description
"It is the contemporary elixir from which all manner of being emerges, the metamorphic sublime, an alchemist's dream." So begins Palma Africana, the latest attempt by anthropologist Michael Taussig to make sense of the contemporary moment. But to what elixir does he refer? Palm oil. Saturating everything from potato chips…
Why read it?
1 author picked Palma Africana as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I was amazed at Taussig’s ability to combine personal description and anecdote with system analysis to reveal “the real.” This is a lyrical account of a useful plant turned into a worldwide commodity.
Palma Africana is better known as an oil palm, and its substance pervades a host of products in the modern economy of consumer goods. In Taussig’s episodic and fast-paced tale, we move from drinking beer with companions in strange new places to the ghosts of night-time jaguars and their corporeal human revenants. Those who know how to grow capital begin by displacing local people with cattle before…
From Harold's list on how the desire for foods and drugs shaped the world.
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