This post reviews the titular book, written by Charles Mann, in which he neutrally explores today’s two dominant views on Man vs Nature from the viewpoints of their primary progenitors: The Wizard, Norman Borlaug, who believed technology will solve all our problems, and the Prophet, William Vogt, who encouraged us to live within Nature’s limits or suffer dire consequences.

It occurs to me that I read a lot of books on scientific topics written by journalists, and that I usually complain about the science, which I am about to do. Maybe I should limit my science reading to books by scientists.

This book is as much history as science, but the science is critical to his arguments. There is a long discussion of photosynthesis, and the possibility of modifying it, with nary a mention of oxygen, something I feel messing with photosynthesis might affect. He lets GMOs off the hook without mentioning monoculture, even though a lot of words are spilled on scientists desperately seeking new seeds to cross in search of genetic variation. He pays obeisance to Lynn Margulis while claiming her main legacy–non-genetic inheritance–came to naught, whereas it is very much in current ascendancy.

I really liked Mann’s 1491, and I also read 1493, though that was mostly depressing. In this book, he praises the Industrial Revolution as a boon to all mankind, to quote Three Jolly Coachmen, which is pretty intense given that much of 1491 was devoted to praising the healthy, equitable, autonomous, leisure-full, famine-free lifestyle of the North American tribes, a lifestyle mostly deleted before the IR, but certainly not one it would have allowed.

Despite these gripes, I did read this entire book, and learned a lot as well. If you’re like me, you think that while we are using fossil fuels, the Earth is creating more, so the problem is just the speed at which we use them. This isn’t true. All the fossil fuels we have were created during the Carboniferous Period, pre-fungi. Now that there are fungi, biomass does not turn into coal or petroleum.

I also liked his examples cautioning us about changing the future. Decision-makers living 300 years ago would have been horrified by a future in which slavery is illegal, women have rights, and social class is disparaged, and they would seek to prevent it. The Lenape of Manhattan would probably choose to keep their homeland despite the loss of Lincoln Center and the Met.

No matter what we do, or don’t do, about climate change, we will affect future generations, just as Borlaug and Vogt are affecting us now.