2nd Edition
Consuming Habits: Global and Historical Perspectives on How Cultures Define Drugs Drugs in History and Anthropology
Covering a wide range of substances, including opium, cocaine, coffee, tobacco, kola, and betelnut, from prehistory to the present day, this new edition has been extensively updated, with an updated bibliography and two new chapters on cannabis and khat. Consuming Habits is the perfect companion for all those interested in how different cultures have defined drugs across the ages.
Psychoactive substances have been central to the formation of civilizations, the definition of cultural identities, and the growth of the world economy. The labelling of these substances as 'legal' or 'illegal' has diverted attention away from understanding their important cultural and historical role. This collection explores the rich analytical category of psychoactive substances from challenging historical and anthropological perspectives.
Introduction: Peculiar Substances 1. Alcohol and its Alternatives: Symbol and Substance in Pre-Industrial Cultures 2. Coca, Beer, Cigars and Yag'e: Meals and Anti-Meals in an Amerindinian Community 3. Nicotian Dreams: The Prehistory and Early History of Tobacco in Eastern North America 4. Betelnut ‘Bisnis’ and Cosmology: A View from Papua New Guinea 5. Kola Nuts: The 'Coffee' of the Central Sudan 6. Excitantia: Or, How Enlightenment Europe took to Soft Drugs 7. From Coffeehouse to Parlour: The Consumption of Coffee, Tea and Sugar in Northwestern Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 8. Tobacco Use and Tobacco Taxation: A Battle of Interests in Early Modern Europe 9. Globalising Ganja: The British Empire and International Cannabis Traffic c. 1834 to c. 1939 10. Japan and the World Narcotics Traffic 11. The Rise and Fall and Rise of Cocaine in the United States 12. Building castles of Spit – The Role of Khat in Work, Ritual and Leisure 13. Afterword
Biography
Jordan Goodman is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. His publications include The Rattlesnake: A Voyage of Discovery to the Coral Sea (2005). Paul E. Lovejoy is Distinguished Research Professor and holds the Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History at York University. His publications include Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (2nd edition, 2000). Andrew Sherratt was Professor of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. His most recent book was Economy and society in prehistoric Europe: changing perspectives (1997).
'This is a fascinating book because it highlights the way history contributes to the shaping of moral attitudes.' – History Teaching Review
