Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants
From the extravagant use of pepper in the Middle Ages to the Protestant bourgeoisie's love of coffee to the reason why fashionable Europeans stopped sniffing tobacco and starting smoking it, Schivelbusch looks at how the appetite for pleasure transformed the social structure of the Old World. Illustrations.\ \ \ From the extravagant use of pepper in the Middle Ages to the Protestant bourgeoisie's love of coffee to the reason why fashionable Europeans stopped sniffing...
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From the extravagant use of pepper in the Middle Ages to the Protestant bourgeoisie's love of coffee to the reason why fashionable Europeans stopped sniffing tobacco and starting smoking it, Schivelbusch looks at how the appetite for pleasure transformed the social structure of the Old World. Illustrations. Publishers Weekly This social history of pleasure-producing substances covers the Middle Ages to the modern era from the perch of an adroit and amiable Marxist sociology. Illustrations. (July)
Preface1Spices, or the Dawn of the Modern Age32Coffee and the Protestant Ethic15A Backward Glance: The Significance of Alcohol before the Seventeenth Century22The Great Soberer34Arguments for and against Coffee39From the Coffeehouse to the Coffee Party49Coffee and Ideology71England's Shift from Coffee to Tea793Chocolate, Catholicism, Ancien Regime854Tobacco: The Dry Inebriant96The Evolution of Smoking: Pipe, Cigar, Cigarette111The Social and Spatial Expansion of Smoking120Snuff in the Eighteenth Century1315The Industrial Revolution, Beer, and Liquor1476Rituals1677Drinking Places188The Coming of Counters and Bars1948The Artificial Paradises of the Nineteenth Century204Opium, the Proletariat, and Poetry206Opium and Colonialism215The New Tolerance223Afterword to the American Edition227Bibliography229
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ This social history of pleasure-producing substances covers the Middle Ages to the modern era from the perch of an adroit and amiable Marxist sociology. Illustrations. (July)\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalWritten by a German historian and social scientist, this unique exploration of the origins and evolution of pleasure substances in the industrialized world is well researched and profusely illustrated. The author examines the habits and customs surrounding the consumption of spices, coffee, tea, chocolate, alcohol, and narcotics to reveal the way these substances and the reactions to them reflected the fabrics, tensions, dynamics, and trends of various societies and nations. An unusual mixture of historical documents, amusing anecdotes, and pertinent statistics, this slim, thought-provoking volume should appeal to both history buffs and casual readers.--Linda Chopra, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., Ohio\ \ \ School Library JournalYA-- A lavishly illustrated, anecdotal survey of all of the substances we chew, drink, or inhale for pleasure and how they were discovered and adopted by humankind. The book shows in fascinating detail how each stimulant, spice, or intoxicant served a particular need for an individual culture and how each, in turn, affected that culture and its behavioral norms. There is no index, but the table of contents is extensive, making it both an effective research tool and an enjoyable source of recreational reading.-- Richard Lisker, Fairfax Public Library, VA\ \
