Victoria Lee reviewed two books on microbes, fermentation, and the so-called Great Divide for the Los Angeles Review of Books, "Soju: A Global History" and "The Probiotic Planet: Using Life to Manage Life."
"Sometimes we leave imprints on their history, too, and the engagement may in fact be gradual, mutual, and continuous... At this moment, as we try to rewrite the history that microbes would write for us, it may be time to look again at the science and technology of the Great Divide itself. We may find that there is more than one way through, even during the transition that we call modernity."
Read the essay here. The essay was included on the LARB’s Best: Science list.