"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Everyone knows a little bit of the story, how the desire to control the spice trade drove Western nations deep into the heart of the Age of Discovery, the Portuguese sponsoring Da Gama's push to India; the Spanish underwriting the many attempts of Columbus to get to India another way. The Western madness for spice was just about peaking in this time, and spice would all too soon become--gasp--common, much like the afterthought condiment it is for so many today. Who thinks twice about pepper any longer?
And yet, the history is long and glorious, and the window spice throws open on Western culture yields a glorious view. Jack Turner is a skilled tour guide and story teller. He starts his narrative with the 16th century quest for spice, then loops back into three mains sections of text: Palate, Body, and Spirit. Turner has mined classic and Medieval literature for any and every possible mention of spice and demonstrates how fixated the West became from the time of Augustus in Rome through to relatively modern times. He winds his narrative through the way spice was used in the foods of the wealthy (and puts to sleep the nostrum about rotting food), as a medicine, a sex aid, and as an aromatic channel to the gods of the time and place. He ably demonstrates the constant underlying tension surrounding spice--that it was both attractive and repellent, that it represented fabulous wealth and power for some and, for others, an abhorrence of the exotic East that exists to this day.
This is not an easy story to tell. But Turner makes it appear effortless. Pull a chair close to the fire, pour a draught of spiced wine, crack open Jack Turner's Spice and you'll read your way into the wee hours of the night. --Schuyler Ingle
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Book Description Hardback. Condition: Very Good. Illustrated (illustrator). The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR002034405
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Good. Illustrated (illustrator). Seller Inventory # 296149
Book Description Condition: Good. Illustrated (illustrator). SHIPS FROM USA. Used books have different signs of use and do not include supplemental materials such as CDs, Dvds, Access Codes, charts or any other extra material. All used books might have various degrees of writing, highliting and wear and tear and possibly be an ex-library with the usual stickers and stamps. Dust Jackets are not guaranteed and when still present, they will have various degrees of tear and damage. All images are Stock Photos, not of the actual item. book. Seller Inventory # 7-000257067X-G
Book Description Condition: Good. Illustrated (illustrator). Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 16854905-20
Book Description Condition: Very Good. Illustrated (illustrator). Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # GRP74703863
Book Description Illustrated (illustrator). First Edition. 1st edition, 2004, with B&W & colour illustrations. Gift inscription on front free end paper; dust jacket spine faded Used - Very Good. VG hardback in VG dust jacket. Seller Inventory # BOOKS308687I
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. Illustrated (illustrator). 1st Edition. First printing. Well bound in clean black cloth covered boards with gilt titling to spine. Corners and spine ends all excellent. Text pages, illustrations and eps are all fine with no markings or inscriptions. D/J is complete with just a little light edge rubbing. Despatched same or next working day in protective packaging. Seller Inventory # 008023
Book Description Cloth. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. Illustrated (illustrator). First British Edition. Well researched History of the Spice Trade, written in terms of the appetite that fuelled it. Black cloth cover with Gilt lettering to spine. Some Colour and B&W Illustrations. 409 Pages, 780g, 9 1/2" Tall. Previous owner's name onreverse of free endpaper. Jacket not clipped. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Seller Inventory # 009582
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: As New. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. Illustrated (illustrator). 1st Edition. Hardcover in As New condition with As New dustwrapper. First edition, pp xxxviii, 409, colour illustrations, index. In the ancient Egyptian temple of Dayr al-Bahri is preserved the earliest surviving representation of a merchant fleet. Date to around 1495 BC, rows of hieroglyphs record that the pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut sent the fleet one thousand nine hundred miles south to the land of Punt, a mysterious kingdom somewhere in the Horn of Africa, whence it returned in triumph with a priceless cargo of cinnamon. Yet cinnamon never grew there; it comes from the islands of Southeast Asia; the scarcely credible conclusion is that by 1500 BC there was a trade in cinnamon from one side of the Indian Ocean to the other. At some unknown place, the long-forgotten merchants of Punt acquired the spice, and then resold it for the use of the embalmers, cosmeticians, priests, gods and god-kings of the Nile. These hints of an ancient trade in spices are only the first, tantalisingly obscure fragments of an epic story. For the sake of spices, fortunes have been made, empires built and destroyed, and new worlds discovered. In the seventeenth century more people died for the sake of cloves than in all the European dynastic wars of the period. Perhaps only the story of mankind?s infatuation with precious metals can rival the story of spice in scope; and only the history of silver and gold rivals that of spice for its improbable and extraordinary combination of discovery and conquest, heroism and savagery, greed and violence. The history of spice encompasses all the old civilizations and the new, from the lands of the Old Testament to the Spice Isands themselves. This is Jack Turner?s first work, but the ambition and brilliance and lucidity of his writing surely mark him out as a new star in the historical firmament. This will be a remarkable book. Seller Inventory # 005488
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. Illustrated (illustrator). 1st Edition. Seller Inventory # 011641