Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing.
The Mushroom at the End of the World: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins.
Princeton University Press. 2015
Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world—and
a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere.
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s account of this sought-after fungi
offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses
a crucial question: what manages to live in the ruins we have made?
The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore 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, 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. The Mushroom at the End of the World is an original examination of the relationship between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival within multispecies landscapes, the prerequisite for continuing life on earth.