The Pursuit of Pleasure
The Pursuit of Pleasure

Author: Rudi Matthee

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 0691144443

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From ancient times to the present day, Iranian social, political, and economic life has been dramatically influenced by psychoactive agents. This book looks at the stimulants that, as put by a longtime resident of seventeenth-century Iran, Raphaël du Mans, provided Iranians with damagh, gave them a "kick," got them into a good mood. By tracing their historical trajectory and the role they played in early modern Iranian society (1500-1900), Rudi Matthee takes a major step in extending contemporary debates on the role of drugs and stimulants in shaping the modern West. At once panoramic and richly detailed, The Pursuit of Pleasure examines both the intoxicants known since ancient times--wine and opiates--and the stimulants introduced later--tobacco, coffee, and tea--from multiple angles. It brings together production, commerce, and consumption to reveal the forces behind the spread and popularity of these consumables, showing how Iranians adapted them to their own needs and tastes and integrated them into their everyday lives. Matthee further employs psychoactive substances as a portal for a set of broader issues in Iranian history--most notably, the tension between religious and secular leadership. Faced with reality, Iran's Shi`i ulama turned a blind eye to drug use as long as it stayed indoors and did not threaten the social order. Much of this flexibility remains visible underneath the uncompromising exterior of the current Islamic Republic.

Not Made by Slaves
Not Made by Slaves

Author: Bronwen Everill

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0674240987

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How abolitionist businesses marshaled intense moral outrage over slavery to shape a new ethics of international commerce. “East India Sugar Not Made By Slaves.” With these words on a sugar bowl, consumers of the early nineteenth century declared their power to change the global economy. Bronwen Everill examines how abolitionists from Europe to the United States to West Africa used new ideas of supply and demand, consumer credit, and branding to shape an argument for ethical capitalism. Everill focuses on the everyday economy of the Atlantic world. Antislavery affected business operations, as companies in West Africa, including the British firm Macaulay & Babington and the American partnership of Brown & Ives, developed new tactics in order to make “legitimate” commerce pay. Everill explores how the dilemmas of conducting ethical commerce reshaped the larger moral discourse surrounding production and consumption, influencing how slavery and freedom came to be defined in the market economy. But ethical commerce was not without its ironies; the search for supplies of goods “not made by slaves”—including East India sugar—expanded the reach of colonial empires in the relentless pursuit of cheap but “free” labor. Not Made by Slaves illuminates the early years of global consumer society, while placing the politics of antislavery firmly in the history of capitalism. It is also a stark reminder that the struggle to ensure fair trade and labor conditions continues.

The World of Caffeine
The World of Caffeine

Author: Bennett Alan Weinberg

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-11-23

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 1135958173

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Caffeine is the world's most popular drug! Almost all of us start our day with a jolt of caffeine from coffee, tea or cola. And many of us crave chocolate when we're stressed or depressed. Without it we're lethargic, head-achy and miserable. Why? Why do we crave caffeine? How much do we really know about our number one drug of choice? Here is the first natural, cultural, and artistic history of our favorite mood enhancer--how it was discovered, its early uses, and the unexpected parts it has played in medicine, religion, painting, poetry, learning, and love. Weinberg and Bealer tell an intriguing story of a remarkable substance that has figured prominently in the exchanges of trade and intelligence among nations and whose most common sources, coffee, tea, and chocolate, have been both promoted as productive of health and creativity and banned as corrupters of the body and mind or subverters of social order. Some Highlights From the World of Caffeine Balzac's addiction to caffeine drove him to eat coffee, as some schizophrenic patients are observed to do today, and may have killed him Mary Tuke breaks the male monopoly on tea in England in 1725 The ways caffeine functions as a smart pill Goethe's responsibility for the discovery of caffeine Did a mini Ice Age help bring coffee, tea and chocolate to popularity in Europe? What is the mystery of coffee's origin? As good as gold: the stories of how caffeine, in its various forms, was used as cash in China, Africa, Central America and Egypt What does the civet cat have to do with the most costly coffee on earth today? The World of Caffeine is a captivating tale of art and society -- from India to Balzac to cybercafes -- and the ultimate caffeine resource.