The Cactus Hunters, Jared D. Margulies
The Cactus Hunters, Jared D. Margulies
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The Cactus Hunters
Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade

Author: Jared D. Margulies

Narrator: Walter Dixon

Unabridged: 11 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/11/2024

Synopsis

Cacti and succulents are phenomenally popular worldwide among plant enthusiasts, despite being among the world's most threatened species. The fervor driving the illegal trade in succulents might also be driving some species to extinction. Delving into the strange world of succulent collecting, The Cactus Hunters takes us to the heart of this conundrum: the mystery of how and why ardent lovers of these plants engage in their illicit trade.

What inspires the desire for a plant? What kind of satisfaction does it promise? The answer, Jared D. Margulies suspects, might be traced through the roots and workings of the illegal succulent trade. His globe-spanning inquiry leads Margulies from a spectacular series of succulent heists on a small island off the coast of Mexico to California law enforcement agents infiltrating a smuggling ring in South Korea, from scientists racing to discover new and rare species before poachers find them to a notorious Czech "cacto-explorer" who helped turn a landlocked European country into the epicenter of the illegal succulent trade.

A heady blend of international intrigue, social theory, botanical lore, and ecological study, The Cactus Hunters offers complex insight into species extinction, conservation, and more-than-human care.

About Jared D. Margulies

Jared D. Margulies is assistant professor of political ecology in the Department of Geography at the University of Alabama. His work has been published in leading academic journals across the fields of social, cultural, and political geography; political ecology; the conservation social sciences; and environmental humanities.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Stitching on December 06, 2023

This book covers a lot of stuff and offers interesting reflections, but its tone is dry and it contains a lot of jargony words (particularly in the parts that focus on the psychoanalytic side of things) which gets frustrating at times, especially when Margulies lets some personality slip into the te......more

Goodreads review by Tina on November 12, 2023

The Cactus Hunters by Jared D. Margulies #dnf #arc This book is theoretically about the illegal trade of succulents. I didn’t get that far. I don’t like not finishing a book that I was given to review. But this one started off so bizarrely that I couldn’t keep on. I gave it 20% and this is not a sma......more

Goodreads review by Kai on October 25, 2023

I'll have a lot to say about this book in print at some point in the future. suffice to say it is both as compelling as the title suggests, and somehow still full of unexpected situations, weird people, and bizarrely ironic attempts to save-by-killing than you might expect. very readable to boot!......more

Goodreads review by Benji on November 16, 2023

An interesting nonfiction book about succulent collecting and its environmental impact. This book was fascinating when it focused on the author’s interviews with collectors, law enforcement, and owners of succulent greenhouses as well as trips to see plants in habitat. A lot of the book focused on p......more

Goodreads review by Cass on July 25, 2023

The summary is what really drew me in and led to me requesting this book through Netgalley. As someone who is an avid collector of house plants (but not many succulents/cacti), the illegal succulent trade is not a topic I had ever heard of before. It gave a whole new perspective on this hobby of min......more

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