Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and IntoxicantsIt began with pepper and other spices, like cinnamon and nutmeg, some eight hundred years ago. Then came coffee, tea, and chocolate, followed by alcohol and opium--all articles of pleasure people in the Western world craved in order to escape from their humdrum lives and heighten their daily enjoyment. How humanity transformed its history in the course of finding the rare condiments, stimulants, intoxicants, and narcotics that helped to make life more tolerable is the story of this rich and captivating book. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, in his engrossing journey through the centuries, documents with a wealth of startling information (and 125 illustrations) how our drive for the pleasure substances we can eat, drink, or inhale fueled the energies of the Old World with an explosive power that propelled mankind across the oceans and into a new age. The urge to please the palate and stimulate, benumb, or pleasure the senses arose at the dawn of the modern age to dovetail with the needs of the rising merchant class and the capitalism it spawned. How the hunger for spices mobilized the Occident's energies with an intensity matched only by today's greed for oil; how coffee became the drink of the bourgeois age as the beverage which, unlike alcohol, promotes clear thinking and hard work; how tobacco became coffee's ally in fine-tuning the fast-paced nervous sensibilities of the modern era--here is a rich human array, an anecdotal history of ideas and beliefs, of fashions, fads, and rituals that orders a treasury of unknown facts in a new way to give us a fresh perspective on our own past and on our present. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - wealhtheowwylfing - LibraryThingA history of stimulants and intoxicants in Europe and America over the last two thousand years, with especial focus to the impacts of colonialism and the industrial revolution. Full of fascinating ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - Kellswitch - LibraryThing"A well written and informative book without being overwhelming. This isn't the most in depth book or look at these topics but it did give me some new perspectives on trade and goods, especially "addictive" goods than I had before." Read full review
Contents
Spices or the Dawn of the Modern Age | 3 |
Coffee and the Protestant Ethic | 15 |
The Significance or Alcohol before the Seventeenth Century | 22 |
Copyright | |
20 other sections not shown
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Common terms and phrases
activity actual advertising alcohol already became become beer begin beverage body breakfast called changed chocolate cigar cigarette civilization coffee coffeehouse comparable consumed consumption course created culture developed drinking drugs drunk early effect eighteenth century England English enter entire Europe European exchange facing fact fluids French function German give half hand hashish human illustrations important India industrial Italy later less liquor London matter means medieval Middle Ages middle-class movement natural nineteenth century offer once opium Orient original Paradise pepper period person pipe played pleasure possible present reason remained rituals role round sense served seventeenth century shows significance sixteenth smoking snuff snuffbox social society sort specific spices stimulating substance symbol taste tavern things tion tobacco trade traditional turn viewed wine women workers
Bibliographic information
| Title | Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants Vintage books |
| Author | Wolfgang Schivelbusch |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Vintage Books, 1993 |
| ISBN | 067974438X, 9780679744382 |
| Length | 236 pages |
| Subjects | › Social Science / Customs & Traditions |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |