| Popis: |
It was not until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that drug trades became truly global in scope, and drugs items of everyday sociability. This chapter draws connections between regional cultures of healing, drug cultivation, and new forms of consumption; and the larger cultural, socioeconomic, and medical impacts of drugs in the early modern era. It argues that the globalization of drugs like coffee, tea, cinchona, opium, and tobacco shaped the fates of both early modern empires and imperial subjects. The growing wealth of European merchants and colonists found a counterpoint in the misery of the African slaves and Indigenous laborers who made imperial drug trades possible. After an overview of key initial drugs, the chapter looks at the social roles of apothecaries and drug merchants, the contribution of colonial healers and cultivators in regions like Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa, and how early modern imperial histories of drugs influence contemporary debates. |
