The Mushroom at the End of the World

Strangely, this was the most hopeful book I read this year. It's unsparing about the devastation wrought by capitalist extraction, in human and ecological terms. But it's neither an elegy nor a call to action. Instead, it's an exploration of how we live and make meaning in the fractured zones that capitalism leaves us. The writing is lucid and minimalist. There are so many ideas that I read it slowly, not because it was dense or dragging, but because its short, vivid chapters are worth savouring.

This is an academic book, but it's beautifully written, and not too, too jargony. Tsing does a kind of commodity ethnography, embedding herself in multiple parts of the lifecycle of the Matsutake Mushroom trade, while depicting the worlds of pickers, restauranteurs, mushroom traders and auctioneers, nature guides, and more. She also weaves in a critique of capitalist markets in which these kinds of natural entities now are embedded, which I dig! 

This is the epic adventure of the delicious matsutake mushroom, which thrives in the ruins of the clear-cut Oregon ponderosa pine forests. Because it’s prized in Japan and China, it’s a precious trophy for those who hunt it. This delightful, elegant book takes us through its life cycle and complex ecosystem underground, the Hmong villagers and other refugees in America who hunt it, the middlemen who pay them, the shippers, buyers, biologists, foresters, economists, and, yes, the anthropologists who study them. It’s an entertaining, surprisingly enriching read about a global phenomenon that takes place “in Capitalist Ruins.” As an aside,… show more.