Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2020

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Introduction

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Background

Scientific Context

As discussed in Entangled Life, fungi have been a source of fascination for most, if not all, of human history. The first mushroom scientists were likely shamans and healers, who harnessed the powers of fungi to cure diseases and induce altered states of consciousness. Early farmers discovered that yeast could be used to make bread and alcohol.

Mycology, the academic study of fungus, has existed since the Renaissance. Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta made the first written observations of fungal spores in 1588. The 18th century saw rapid growth within mycology, beginning with Pier Antonio Micheli’s 1729 work Nova plantarum genera iuxta Tournefortii methodum disposita, which described 900 species of lichen and fungi and first proposed the idea that spores could grow into mushrooms. Later in the 18th century, Carl Linnaeus, who popularized taxonomic classification in biology, established many of the main categories of mushrooms known today.

For most of the 18th through 20th centuries, mycology was lumped in with ecology and plant biology. Although fungus has long been recognized as a separate biological kingdom, on the same level as the animal kingdom or plant kingdom, it was not given nearly the same level of research attention. Sheldrake speculates that this may be due to its relative invisibility; mushrooms are the only part of fungi that are typically visible. Entangled Life is part of a recent boom in mycology. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, biologists began to realize just how widespread fungal species are and how they have impacted evolution, biodiversity, and even human life.

Literary Context: Narrative Nature Writing

Entangled Life is a modern contribution to the longstanding tradition of narrative nature writing. Sheldrake uses a combination of scientific analysis, personal anecdotes, and detailed descriptions of natural environments to give readers a vivid, holistic picture of fungal life.

This type of nature writing likely began in the 18th century among British naturalists like Gilbert White and William Bertram, who wrote descriptive accounts of their observations within nature that became popular with nonacademic readers. The first nature writing was primarily meant to interpret the natural world and was closely linked to the development of the first field guides, books that outlined specific species to help nonexperts identify them.

In the 20th century, nature writing focused more on the human impact on nature, especially with the rise of the environmentalist movement. Rachel Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring is a major example of this type of nature writing. In the book, she outlines how pesticides have damaged the natural environment. Contemporary nature writing often follows the tradition of Silent Spring and aims to convey the complexity, importance, and fragility of natural landscapes. Entangled Life falls within this category and is strongly aligned with the work of modern writers like Robert McFarlane. McFarlane is not exclusively a nature writer, but like those of Sheldrake, McFarlane’s books typically tackle large-scale subjects through a series of compelling anecdotes. For example, his first book, Mountains of the Mind (2018), explores mountain landscapes and their impact on the human psyche throughout time.