Overview

The regular use of mind-altering drugs is a human universal, a culturally patterned behaviour found world-wide. Anthropologists and historians have documented the use of intoxicants by peoples all over the planet, on all levels of cultural complexity, and seemingly in all periods of human history. Some psychologists argue that the desire to alter consciousness is an innate drive, and pharmacologists have shown how inebriation was a part of life long before mankind came into being, and that it is a primary motivational force in animals. Drugs have been used for religious, therapeutic and festive purposes, such as to achieve trance or possession states, to get in touch with preternatural or supernatural realms, for divination and prophecy, to cure or to alleviate physical or mental ills, to celebrate and mark socially relevant transitions, and to escape ordinary conditions of existence. The large-scale production of drugs in modern times has made them more widely available and affordable to larger sectors of the population. In many countries around and within the Pacific, this modern transformation has been especially intense and dramatic. Since the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, psychoactive drugs have played a growing role in the history of societies from China to Peru, and from Alaska and Siberia to Australia. This volume provides a selection of papers that re-evaluates both the history of mind-altering substances in the Pacific World and the crucial historical transformations connected with them. Coverage stretches from the arrival of Portuguese in Macao and Spaniards along the Pacific coast of America, until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, two years after the Shanghai Conference that established the first international agreement on the control of ""narcotics"".

Full Product Details

Author:   Juan F. Gamella ,  Professor Dennis O. Flynn ,  Professor Arturo Giraldez
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Edition:   New edition
Volume:   14
Weight:   0.941kg
ISBN:  

9780754601531

ISBN 10:   0754601536
Pages:   444
Publication Date:   18 April 2002
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Contents: Preface; Introduction; The Indigenous Base: Antiquity of the use of new world hallucinogens, Richard Evans Schultes; Psychoactive substances of the South Seas: Betel, Kava and Pituri’, John Cawte; Peyotism, 1521-1891, J.S. Slotkin; Russian use of Amanita muscaria: a footnote to Wasson’s Soma, Ethel Dunn; Tobacco: The introduction of tobacco into Japan, Ernest M. Satow; Early prohibitions of tobacco in China and Manchuria, L. Carrington Goodrich; Tobacco, culture and health among American Indians: a historical review, Christina M. Pego, Robert F. Hill, Glenn W. Solomon, Robert M. Chisholm and Suzanne E. Ivey; Opium: Opium smoking in Ch’ing China, Jonathan Spence; Speculations on the nature and pattern of opium smoking, John C. Kramer; Opium in Java: a sinister friend, James R. Rush; The opium trade in Szechwan, 1881 to 1911, S.A.M. Adshead; Reform, nationalism and internationalism: the opium suppression movement in China and the Anglo-American influence, 1900-1908, Thomas D. Reins; Coca-Cocaine: Inca and colonial settlement, coca cultivation and endemic disease in the tropical forest, Daniel W. Gade; Coca and popular medicine in Peru: an historical analysis of attitudes, Joseph A. Gagliano; America’s first cocaine epidemic: What did we learn?, David F. Musto; Alcohol: Opening Pandora’s bottle: reconstructing Micronesians’ early contacts with alcoholic beverages, Mac Marshall and Leslie B. Marshall; Drinking, popular protest and governmental response in 17th- and 18th-century Latin America, John E. Kicza; Malhiot’s Journal: an ethnohistoric assessment of Chippewa alcohol behaviour in the early 19th century, Jack O. Waddell; Alcohol in Chinese poems: references to drunkenness, flushing and drinking, Julia Lee; A Battle not Man’s But God’s: origins of the American temperance crusade in the struggle for religious authority, Laura A. Schmidt; Index.

Reviews

'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

Author Information

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.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions