Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World

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Before Columbus\'s fateful voyage in 1492, no European had ever noticed, considerably significantly less tasted, tobacco or chocolate. At first dismissed as dry leaves and an odd Indian drink, these two commodities came to conquer Europe on a scale unsurpassed by any other American resource or merchandise. A fascinating story of get in touch with, exploration, and exchange in the Atlantic planet, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures traces the approaches in which these two items of the Americas both altered and were transformed by Europe.Focusing on the Spanish Empire, Marcy Norton investigates how tobacco and chocolate grew to become material and symbolic back links to the pre-Hispanic past for colonized Indians and colonizing Europeans alike. Botanical ambassadors of the American continent, they also profoundly impacted Europe. Tobacco, as soon as condemned as proof of Indian diabolism, grew to become the consistent companion of clergymen and the single largest source of state income in Spain. Ahead of coffee or tea became well-known in Europe, chocolate was the drink that energized the fatigued and uplifted the depressed. Even so, no one particular could very neglect the pagan previous of tobacco and chocolate, despite their apparent Europeanization: physicians relied on Mesoamerican health-related systems for their knowing of tobacco theologians looked to Aztec precedent to make a decision no matter whether chocolate consuming violated Lenten fasts.The struggle of scientists, theologians, and aficionados alike to reconcile notions of European superiority with the truth of American influence shaped important modern day developments ranging from all-natural background to secularization. Norton considers the materials, social, and cultural interaction in between Europe and the Americas with historical depth and insight that goes beyond the portrayal of Columbian exchange simply as a matter of exploitation, infection, and conquest.

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