Mushrooms and sweetgrass: A biotic harvest of culture and place-based learning

What can two books do? This critical review essay explores Tsing's (2015) The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, and Kimmerer's (2013) Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. The benefits of environmental learning through deep reading are examined. Each of these books works to solidify and expand commitments to particular environmental and cultural themes, most notably the combined power of natural history and cultural study, and the tensions between our hyper-mobile, immigrant global culture and the desire many of us have to stay put long enough to truly belong.