Summary of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing 's The Mushroom at the End of the World

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Sample Book Insights:

#1 I was on my first search for matsutake in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. I had found the Forest Service’s big camp for mushroom pickers, but all the pickers were out foraging. I decided to look for mushrooms myself while I waited for their return.

#2 In 1908 and 1909, two railroad entrepreneurs raced to build track along Oregon’s Deschutes River. The goal of each was to be the first to create an industrial connection between the towering ponderosas of the eastern Cascades and the stacked lumberyards of Portland.

#3 In 1989, a plastic owl was hung in effigy on an Oregon logging truck. Environmentalists had shown that unsustainable logging was destroying Pacific Northwest forests. By 1989, many mills had already closed, and loggers were moving to other regions.

#4 The Pacific Northwest is an example of how the call of industrial promise and ruin can affect landscapes. While some saw the arrival of thousands of people as a threat to the environment, others saw it as a threat to the mushroom trade.