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A review by thetainaship
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
1.5
I want to preface this review with the caveat that university has kind of ruined nonfiction for me: nowadays everything just feels like I'm reading an introduction and keep waiting for the real deal to start – the details, the evidence, the argumentation – but it never comes. That definitely affected my enjoyment of this book.
The writing is pleasant enough, but I feel I Contain Multitudes is a bit worse than usual about leaving out important details. Often Ed Yong will offhandedly mention something really fascinating (such as that microbes "ensure the sanctity of the blood-brain barrier", p. 63) but doesn't elaborate and never returns to the topic, so that I feel I'm just reading a list of fun facts. Or he'll mention that deep-sea giant tube worms living around hydrothermal vents have no mouth or anus because they get all their nutrition from chemoautotrophic bacteria living inside them that use sulfides for energy, but doesn't explain how those sulfides get from the surrounding water into the worms and to their bacterial symbiotes.
But my biggest complaint is the glaring lack of critical engagement at times. Yong cautions against assuming causation, so is careful to avoid stating that gut microbes whose presence correlates with obesity make you fat, but blandly assumes that fat = bad, and takes it for granted as a sign of unhealth. He mentions research into "curing" autism without any reflection. And in a chapter especially devoted to ecosystems, in a whole book that advocates for a wider ecological view of microbiomes, he presents the introduction of Leucaena to Northern Australia as cattle fodder as an unambiguous success for the cattle industry, when these plants are among the worst invasive species according to the IUCN.
The writing is pleasant enough, but I feel I Contain Multitudes is a bit worse than usual about leaving out important details. Often Ed Yong will offhandedly mention something really fascinating (such as that microbes "ensure the sanctity of the blood-brain barrier", p. 63) but doesn't elaborate and never returns to the topic, so that I feel I'm just reading a list of fun facts. Or he'll mention that deep-sea giant tube worms living around hydrothermal vents have no mouth or anus because they get all their nutrition from chemoautotrophic bacteria living inside them that use sulfides for energy, but doesn't explain how those sulfides get from the surrounding water into the worms and to their bacterial symbiotes.
But my biggest complaint is the glaring lack of critical engagement at times. Yong cautions against assuming causation, so is careful to avoid stating that gut microbes whose presence correlates with obesity make you fat, but blandly assumes that fat = bad, and takes it for granted as a sign of unhealth. He mentions research into "curing" autism without any reflection. And in a chapter especially devoted to ecosystems, in a whole book that advocates for a wider ecological view of microbiomes, he presents the introduction of Leucaena to Northern Australia as cattle fodder as an unambiguous success for the cattle industry, when these plants are among the worst invasive species according to the IUCN.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Excrement, and Fatphobia