Substance and Seduction: Ingested Commodities in Early Modern Mesoamerica

by Stacey Schwartzkopf (Editor), Kathryn E. Sampeck (Contributor)

Chocolate and sugar, alcohol and tobacco, peyote and hallucinogenic mushrooms—these seductive substances have been a nexus of desire for both pleasure and profit in Mesoamerica since colonial times. But how did these substances seduce? And when and how did they come to be desired and then demanded, even by those who had never encountered them before? The contributors to this volume explore these questions across a range of times, places, and peoples to discover how the individual pleasures of consumption were shaped by social, cultural, economic, and political forces. Focusing on ingestible substances as a group, which has not been done before in the scholarly literature, the chapters in Substance and Seduction trace three key links between colonization and commodification. First, as substances that were taken into the bodies of both colonizers and colonized, these foods and drugs participated in unexpected connections among sites of production and consumption; racial and ethnic categories; and free, forced, and enslaved labor regimes. Second, as commodities developed in the long transition from mercantile to modern capitalism, each substance in some way drew its enduring power from its ability to to stimulate bodies; to alter minds; to mark class, social, and ethnic boundaries; and to generate wealth. Finally, as objects of scholarly inquiry, each substance rewards interdisciplinary approaches that balance the considerations of pleasure and profit, materiality and morality, and culture and political economy.

Genres: Nonfiction

220 pages, Paperback

Published November 20, 2017

Reviews

[Charles Heath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven collection of essays

[Karla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read the parts that were relevant to my interests - chocolate and cacao. It is very academic writing.

[Daniel Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really cool book about "ingested commodities" - substances that exist at the intersection of social item, food, religion, medicine, and addictive drug. In 6 chapters, the authors explore peyote, chicha/rum, chocolate, tobacco, pulque, and laws around trade in these items in Guatemala. As you can probably imagine, a book about these topics takes the reader on a tour of how these items transitioned from their Pre-Columbian roles into modern items of local consumption and global trade, and the evolution of cultural, legal, and even linguistic treatment within indigenous communities, the Spanish government, and the broader Atlantic world. I also love the conclusion, which ties these questions from early modern Latin America to contemporary issues of tobacco companies, environmental degradation, labor rights, and national identity. Occasionally the book does stray into academic language that can be a little challenging - however, I was still able to understand these occasionally obscure sentences, and 95% of the book is perfectly accessible and incredibly fascinating.