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A review by colettieb
Moon Michigan by Laura Martone
4.0
This book took me a long time to finish, but in the end I really enjoyed it! At first, I found the blend of spirituality, cultural history and scientific explanations a bit off-putting, perhaps because I'm used to reading scientific papers so critically. I'm not used to romanticizing nature like this (unless the whole book is lyrical nature descriptions. I guess I found the blend hard to get used to). I also found myself a bit defensive when reading her long negative sections about academia and the scientific perspective, in particular when she seemed to conflate science with both western capitalism and colonialism. Because isn't part of the point of her book that indigenous people have been *doing* science for thousands of years, and that science doesn't have to be competitive and destructive? Still, it's probably good that I've found a text that challenges me in this way. And anyway, it's a welcome change from the typical pop-science narrator voice (ie, the new atheist / Neil de Grasse Tyson / white man explaining the world with Facts and Logic narrator).
My favorite parts of the book were her stories about particular cultural practices where she explained both their spiritual significance and what makes them sustainable. I particularly love her stories about wild rice harvesting, when she explained how harvesting in the traditional way with sticks on canoes re-seeds the lake for the following year. There are plenty of other stories like that -- three sisters crop rotation, traditional sweetgrass harvesting, basket weaving. Those images will stay in my head for a long time, and I love that they emphasize how communal living and gift economies can be sustainable and plentiful for everyone.
In my least favorite chapter, she discusses how Americans are so absorbed with consumerism and disconnected from the sources of their food and material objects. She even says that too much blame is placed on the oil companies rather than on individuals who are ungrateful and disconnected from nature. Here, I completely disagree, and it's a point where an otherwise interesting and complex book falls back on liberal greenwashing, with admonitions to 'vote with your dollar' and 'consume ethically'. I think that moralizing about individual consumer choices rather than fighting the corporations that are cooking the planet and giving us these limited choices in the first place (while spending billions to advertise these non-sustainable choices to us) is a pretty big flaw in a book that is otherwise great. I respect her justified anger towards American power structures, but I'm less sympathetic for the contempt she seems to hold for the people around her (for example, at the mall in upstate New York).
I'm still puzzling out what I should take from this book and incorporate into my life as a white scientist who studies plants. Certainly, I want to read more books about indigenous communities and sustainability. I definitely need to think more about how I can help combat settler colonialism when I teach Rocky Mountain Flora next spring. Clearly I have a lot of thoughts about this book and am still puzzling through them.
My favorite parts of the book were her stories about particular cultural practices where she explained both their spiritual significance and what makes them sustainable. I particularly love her stories about wild rice harvesting, when she explained how harvesting in the traditional way with sticks on canoes re-seeds the lake for the following year. There are plenty of other stories like that -- three sisters crop rotation, traditional sweetgrass harvesting, basket weaving. Those images will stay in my head for a long time, and I love that they emphasize how communal living and gift economies can be sustainable and plentiful for everyone.
In my least favorite chapter, she discusses how Americans are so absorbed with consumerism and disconnected from the sources of their food and material objects. She even says that too much blame is placed on the oil companies rather than on individuals who are ungrateful and disconnected from nature. Here, I completely disagree, and it's a point where an otherwise interesting and complex book falls back on liberal greenwashing, with admonitions to 'vote with your dollar' and 'consume ethically'. I think that moralizing about individual consumer choices rather than fighting the corporations that are cooking the planet and giving us these limited choices in the first place (while spending billions to advertise these non-sustainable choices to us) is a pretty big flaw in a book that is otherwise great. I respect her justified anger towards American power structures, but I'm less sympathetic for the contempt she seems to hold for the people around her (for example, at the mall in upstate New York).
I'm still puzzling out what I should take from this book and incorporate into my life as a white scientist who studies plants. Certainly, I want to read more books about indigenous communities and sustainability. I definitely need to think more about how I can help combat settler colonialism when I teach Rocky Mountain Flora next spring. Clearly I have a lot of thoughts about this book and am still puzzling through them.