Drugs and Alcohol in the Pacific: New Consumption Trends and their Consequences (The Pacific World: Lands, Peoples and History of the Pacific, 1500-1900) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0754601536 ISBN 13: 9780754601531

Publisher: Routledge, 2002

Synopsis

From the arrival of Europeans in the Pacific in the 16th century, introduced psychoactive drugs have played a crucial role in the history of societies from China to Peru, and from Alaska to Australia. Tobacco, followed by opium, distilled alcohol, caffeinated drinks, as well as laboratory drugs such as morphine and cocaine, became standardized and massively produced commodities. These substances joined a local base of indigenous drugs and fermented beverages to create new traditions of consumption that characterized entire peoples and cultures. They were also tools of European domination, so crucial elements of cultural and economic change: opium in China, coca in the Andes, and tobacco and spirits in Oceania. New consumption and production patterns revealed important differences among cultures and polities of the region, and spawned social problems that, in turn, transformed collective representations of these substances. Some became powerful moral symbols that shaped influential social and political movements, such as the Temperance League in the U.S., and the anti-opium movement in China.

About this title

About the Author:

Juan F. Gamella, University of Granada, Spain Richard Evans Schultes, John Cawte, J.S. Slotkin, Ethel Dunn, Ernest M. Satow, L. Carrington Goodrich, Christina M. Pego, Robert F. Hill, Glenn W. Solomon, Robert M. Chisholm, Suzanne E. Ivey, Jonathan Spence, John C. Kramer, James R. Rush, S.A.M. Adshead, Thomas D. Reins, Daniel W. Gade, Joseph A. Gagliano, David F. Musto, Mac Marshall, Leslie B. Marshall, John E. Kicza, Jack O. Waddell, Julia Lee, Laura A. Schmidt.

Review:

'The editor's introduction is useful in several ways, particularly as a good overview for non-experts... As to the specific articles, they seem to be well chosen to highlight the diversity of peoples, places, and practices in the Pacific.' Bulletin of the Pacific Circle

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0754601536
• ISBN 13: 9780754601531
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 444
• Editor: Gamella Juan F.