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  • The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins
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Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
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The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins Audio CD – CD, Nov. 28 2017

by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (Author), Susan Ericksen (Reader)
4.6 out of 5 stars 670 ratings
4.0 on Goodreads
7,614 ratings

鶹

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Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world--and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. In all its contradictions, matsutake offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial question: what manages to live in the ruins we have made? A tale of diversity within our damaged landscapes, The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore the unexpected corners of capitalism. Here, we witness the varied and peculiar worlds of matsutake commerce: the worlds of Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, industrial forests, Yi Chinese goat herders, Finnish nature guides, and more. These companions also lead us into fungal ecologies and forest histories to better understand the promise of cohabitation in a time of massive human destruction.
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  1. Language
    English
  2. Publisher
    Tantor Audio
  3. Publication date
    Nov. 28 2017
  4. Dimensions
    13.21 x 14.48 cm
  5. ISBN-10
    1665238895
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1665238892
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Product description

About the Author

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Niels Bohr Professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, where she codirects Aarhus University Research on the Anthropocene (AURA). She is the author of Friction and In the Realm of the Diamond Queen.

Susan Ericksen is an actor and voice-over artist. She has been awarded numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. As an actor and director, she has worked in theaters throughout the country.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tantor Audio
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ Nov. 28 2017
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ Unabridged
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1665238895
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1665238892
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.21 x 14.48 cm
  • 鶹 Rank: #104 in Cultural Anthropology (Books)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 out of 5 stars 670 ratings

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Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

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4.6 out of 5 stars
670 global ratings

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Top reviews from Canada

  • Eugène Fournier
    5.0 out of 5 stars Though beginnings, enthralling ends
    Reviewed in Canada on June 20, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    The beginning is a bit dry and boring, but once Tsing gets into the meat of the entanglements - or the rythm of the story, if you will, you slowly become eager to find out more, until you look forward to every next page.
    One person found this helpful
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  • grace
    5.0 out of 5 stars good
    Reviewed in Canada on January 24, 2021
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    good
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  • Andre Noel
    5.0 out of 5 stars A strong ethnological analysis
    Reviewed in Canada on September 22, 2019
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    Excellent !.
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  • jeder janotti junior
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in Canada on December 25, 2016
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    Amazing
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • gox
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
    Reviewed in France on January 18, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Even for Fungi fanatics, like I am, it is impressive to realise how a simple mushroom can provoke such a complexity of relationships, history international impact...the creation of a capitalistic system. Brilliant, well written as well, though some lengths could have been skipped by the editor to reinforce the pace of the storyline which could be just a fascinating thriller. Bravo
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  • Vince Leo
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Joys of Entanglement
    Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Taking as her subject the Matsutake mushroom—prized as a gift in Japan and scavenged in ruined post-industrial forests around the world—Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing has created a grand synthesis that interrogates and integrates everything from current anthropological methodology to the foundations of Darwinism to the history of post-industrial capital formation. Tsing has done her homework: There are individual interviews with American pickers, Finnish planners, and Japanese scientists; there are histories of U.S. Forest Service regulations and Japanese village commons; there are scientific papers and field trips to labs and pickers’ camps. Using this wealth of data, Tsing creates mushroom and methodological “patches,” temporary and fluid “entanglements” of people, practices, economies, and stories that proceed from the scrub pine and Khmer pickers of the Pacific Northwest to the shipping containers and international traders of the Japanese market.

    For all its theoretical and political ambitions, The Mushroom at the End of the World is a response to a growing feeling of helplessness and despair: a sense of the precariousness of our current economic and ecological status combined with the indeterminacy of events beyond our control. And even though Tsing has managed to provide a convincing argument for a world free of the comforting fantasies of progress and stability, she has also revealed the hidden freedoms, alliances, discussions, and visions that might proceed from such a world. For Tsing, entanglement and patches are not just descriptive methodologies; they provide a new way to understand agency as shared and always emerging from interspecies, intercultural, and historical interactions. These are tools for a new type of being, a new type of knowledge, a new type of planet. Consistent for a book built on the indeterminate and precarious, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel for Anna Tsing. But there are campfires, shared stories, and, when the stars align, moments of revelation.
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  • Luisa
    5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent ethnography
    Reviewed in Brazil on August 9, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    One of the best ethnographies I've ever read in my life! The edition is not very good, many blank pages, but it's worth a lot! An incredibly powerful critique of capitalism, and a careful look at other ways of life.
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  • LGR
    5.0 out of 5 stars eccelente
    Reviewed in Italy on October 21, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    un libro veramente interssante e inusuale.
    Che vi interessi il tema nel suo complesso o in parti quali la vita di questi funghi e la loro convivenza con gli ospiti, o meglio ancora la storia biologica delle foreste in cui questo fungo vive, vale veramente la pena di leggero
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  • Karin Buglová
    5.0 out of 5 stars good reads
    Reviewed in Germany on June 24, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    awesome book
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