The Poppy: A Cultural History from Ancient Egypt to Flanders Fields to Afghanistan

by Nicholas J. Saunders

In the aftermath of the horrific trench warfare of the First World War, the poppy – sprouting across the killing fields of France and Belgium, then immortalised in John McCrae’s moving poem – became a worldwide icon. Yet the poppy has a longer history, as the tell-tale sign of human cultivation of the land, of the ravages of war and of the desire to escape the earthly realm through inspired Romantic opium dreams or the grim reality of morphine drips. This is a story spanning three thousand years, from the ancient Egyptian fights over prized medicinal potions to the addicted veterans returning home from the American Civil War, from the British political machinations during the Opium Wars with China to the struggle to end Afghanistan’s tribal narcotics trade. Through it all, there stands the transformative poppy.

Nicholas J. Saunders brings us the definitive history of this ever-enduring but humble flower of the fields, a story that is at turns tragic, eye-opening and, most essentially, life-affirming – a gift to us all.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War I, Plants, Nature

357 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 7, 2013

About the author

Nicholas J. Saunders is the world’s leading authority on the anthropological archaeology of the First world war. A lecturer in the department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Bristol, he undertook the first-ever study of Great war material culture as a British Academy Senior Research Fellow at University College London between 1998 and 2004. His exhibition of trench art from the war was for five years a centrepiece of the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, Belgium. He has published more than twenty-five books, including Trench Art, Killing Time, Alexander’s Tomb and Matters of Conflict, and has appeared in documentaries for the BBC, the National Geographic Channel and the History Channel. He co-directs two major Great war archaeological projects, in Jordan and Slovenia, and lives in west Sussex.

Reviews

[Snoakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into this book - the first few chapters just don't seem to flow.  Once the story reaches the first world war though, the author really gets into his stride.  You feel these are the stories he wants to tell - the poppy as a symbol of remembrance and the role of the opium poppy in the conflict in Afghanistan.  Fascinating stuff.

[Natalia Nazeem Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough, fascinating history on the poppy - the book takes you through the journey of the poppy, from uses in ancient history (via tablet inscriptions), through the Opium Wars, to the effect the corn poppy had during the Great War and the subsequent wars after, back to the opium poppy's presence in Afghanistan, effectively tying the two plants together.

[Annalise Kraines · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I would have enjoyed this book more if I were excited about poppies. It was thoroughly researched, but a little pretentious in its tone.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

All flowers have meaning, supposedly - "there's rosemary, that's for remembrance—" to quote Ophelia - but few flowers come as weighted with meaning and significance as the humble poppy. It is hard now, almost impossible, to think of the battlefields of WW1 without envisaging poppies, hard to imagine any kind of remembrance ceremony without the red poppy wreaths. Warfare and poppies have become one, and as a result the poppy itself has become as enmeshed in political, ideological, economic and religious conflict as it once was in Flanders' fields.

Nicholas Saunders charts the history of the poppy - or more appropriately, two species of poppy, the red corn poppy and the white opium poppy. The two are often confused, and in the history of warfare have almost become inseparable, one a symbol of death and blood spilled, the other the source of pain-relief and the haze of forgetfulness. Corn poppies thrive in broken ground, partly why they grow in such profusion in battlefields, and opium poppies have been harvested for their narcoleptic effect for thousands of years. In the supreme example of the combining of the two, and in one of our more shameful historical episodes, the British Empire even fought a war over the right to profit from illegal opium sales in China.

Understandably the focus in this book is primarily on WW1 and the adoption of the red poppy as the official symbol of honour and remembrance, but it also focuses heavily on the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and especially the opium trade in the latter country. The combination of the red corn poppy and the white opium poppy, whilst understandable given how often the two are confused, makes this book's narrative a tad muddled - leaping from red poppies and Remembrance Sundays to the War on Terror and the Taliban gives a reader a certain amount of literary whiplash. Perhaps a more straight-forward exploration of the red poppy's adoption, meaning, significance and controversies might have made for a more coherent narrative, without the detours into the drug trade and Taliban.

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, full of useful historical detail-- a definitive history of the flower's evolution into a memorial commodity. Also thoughtful: I'd never realized the degree to which opiates fueled imperialism and made modern industrialized warfare possible.

[Joyce · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was well written and I particularly enjoyed learning about how the poppy came about as a symbol to be used in honoring veterans. However, it went into way too much detail for me. It just wasn't for me. I finally ended up skimming over large parts of it.

[Malene Clementsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m using this for my thesis, I skimmed a few chapters but I really enjoyed it and it’s going to be a lot of help in my paper!

A very interesting read ☺️

[Lauryn Carrington · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, the book was interesting. I loved learning about the history of both the corn poppy and its distant relative, the opium poppy. Their connections to modern day through remembrance and war was also very interesting. The book didn't completely draw me in but that may be due to the fact that it was a nonfiction book. Which have a ton of facts but not the familiarity of a fiction book.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an overwhelming topic and yet Nicholas Saunders does a fantastic job at tackling it. Well researched and wonderfully written. I cannot stop recommending this book to everyone I see.