Harvest: The Hidden Histories of Seven Natural Objects Audiobook (Free)

‘An exceptional first book; Harvest can be a subtle, amazing braiding of travel, cultural and natural history … It is a enjoyment and an education to trip with him in these web pages’ Robert Macfarlane

In a centuries-old tradition, farmers in northwestern Iceland scour remote control coastal plains for the down of nesting eider ducks.

High inside a vast cave in Borneo, men perched atop rickety ladders collect swiftlets’ nests, a delicacy thought to be an end to almost anything.

Eiderdown and edible about Harvest: The Hidden Histories of Seven Natural Objects birds’ nests: both are extravagance products, ultimately destined for the super-rich. To all of those other world these components are mere goods but towards the harvesters all of them are imbued with misconception, custom, folklore and ritual, and type a part of a shared identification and history.

These objects are two of the seven natural wonders whose stories Harvest tells: eiderdown, vicuña wool, sea silk, vegetable ivory, civet coffee, guano and edible birds’ nests. Harvest follows their journey from your wildest parts of the planet, traversing Iceland, Indonesia, and Peru, to its urban centres, drawing on the voices from the gatherers, shearers and entrepreneurs who harvest, procedure and trade them.

Blending interviews, background and travel composing, Harvest models these human stories against our changing financial and ecological scenery. What do they reveal about capitalism, global marketplace pushes and overharvesting? How does an area micro-economy survive in a hyper-connected world?

Harvest makes us start to see the globe with wonder, attention and new concern. It really is a genuine and magical new map of our world and its own riches.