Commodifying Cannabis (eBook)

A Cultural History of a Complex Plant in the Atlantic World

Bradley J. Borougerdi (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
202 Seiten
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-4985-8638-2 (ISBN)

Infos

This study examines the cultural history of cannabis and its various uses in the Atlantic world over the past two centuries. The author analyzes the Orientalist mindset that colored Western reception of the plant in the nineteenth century and the cultural associations that informed public perception and policy in the twentieth century.

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Cannabis is a genetically diverse plant that has been commodified for a variety of different purposes by many cultures throughout world history. For thousands of years, people have used its fiber, seed, and flowers to make rope and cloth, rig ships, feed people and livestock, concoct medicines, and alter states of consciousness. Until the nineteenth century, though, most Europeans and Americans were unaware of drug varieties of cannabis. The British encountered them in India and created western-style medicines that sold throughout the Atlantic world by the 1840s, but negative associations with Oriental intoxication and degeneracy sullied the plant's reputation as a viable commodity. Now, after decades of transatlantic criminalization policies against cannabis in the twentieth century, it is making a comeback. In Commodifying Cannabis, Bradley J. Borougerdi traces the tangled histories of its use for fiber, medicine, and altered states of consciousness across the Atlantic world, focusing on the dynamic interplay between these three different cultural applications to explain why the plant has transformed so many times throughout history. The historical journey spans a vast geographical landscape and includes over three centuries of source material to illuminate the cultural foundations behind the myriad transformations cannabis has endured as a commodity in the Atlantic world.

Autor

Bradley J. Borougerdi is associate professor of history at Tarrant County College.

Inhalt

Introduction: Constructed Cannabis CulturesChapter 1: The Cultural Botany of CannabisChapter 2: Cannabis in History: A Triple Purpose PlantChapter 3: The Ties that Bind: Cannabis Fiber and the Atlantic WorldChapter 4: Reorienting Empire and Transforming Perceptions of Cannabis in the Atlantic WorldChapter 5: "At Once a Curse and a Blessing": The Transatlantic Transformations of "Oriental" CannabisChapter 6: From Rope to Dope: The Indian Hemp Drug Commission and its Transatlantic AftermathChapter 7: Shifting Cultural Consumption Patterns of Cannabis in U.S. Transatlantic HistoryConclusion: Refashioning Meaning

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.11.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Neuzeit bis 1918
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Schlagworte: Atlantic History • British Imperialism • Cannabis • Commodity studies • Cultural History • drug history • HEMP • Medical History • Orientalism • transatlantic history • Transatlantic Studies • transnational history • Transnational Studies
• ISBN-10: 1-4985-8638-4 / 1498586384
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4985-8638-2 / 9781498586382