Download Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World AudioBook Free
Before Columbus's fateful voyage in 1492, no Western had ever seen, significantly less tasted, cigarette or chocolate. Originally dismissed as dry leaves and an unusual Indian drink, these two commodities came to conquer European countries on a size unsurpassed by other American tool or product. A fascinating story of contact, exploration, and exchange in the Atlantic world, Sacred Gift ideas, Profane Pleasures traces the ways in which these two goods of the Americas both improved and were improved by Europe. Concentrating on the Spanish Empire, Marcy Norton investigates how cigarette and chocolate became materials and symbolic links to the pre-Hispanic history for colonized Indians and colonizing Europeans alike. Botanical ambassadors of the American continent, they also profoundly affected European countries. Cigarette, once condemned as proof Indian diabolism, became the continuous partner of clergymen and the single largest source of state revenue in Spain. Before coffee or tea became popular in European countries, chocolate was the drink that energized the fatigued and uplifted the stressed out. However, no one could quite your investment pagan past of cigarette and chocolate, despite their visible Europeanization: health professionals relied on Mesoamerican medical systems for his or her understanding of cigarette; theologians looked to Aztec precedent to choose whether chocolate taking in violated Lenten fasts. The have difficulty of researchers, theologians, and aficionados alike to reconcile notions of Western superiority with the fact of American influence formed key modern developments which range from natural history to secularization. Norton considers the materials, social, and social interaction between European countries and the Americas with historical depth and insight that moves beyond the portrayal of Columbian exchange simply as a matter of exploitation, illness, and conquest.
