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The Age of Intoxication: Origins of the Global Drug Trade
Eating the flesh of an Egyptian mummy prevents the plague. Distilled poppies reduce melancholy. A Turkish drink called coffee increases alertness. Tobacco cures cancer. Such beliefs circulated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an era when the term "drug" encompassed everything from herbs and spices—like nutmeg, cinnamon, and chamomile—to such deadly poisons as lead, mercury, and arsenic. In The Age of Intoxication , Benjamin Breen offers a window into a time when drugs were not yet separated into categories—illicit and licit, recreational and medicinal, modern and traditional—and there was no barrier between the drug dealer and the pharmacist.
Focusing on the Portuguese colonies in Brazil and Angola and on the imperial capital of Lisbon, Breen examines the process by which novel drugs were located, commodified, and consumed. He then turns his attention to the British Empire, arguing that it owed much of its success in this period to its usurpation of the Portuguese drug networks. From the sickly sweet tobacco that helped finance the Atlantic slave trade to the cannabis that an East Indies merchant sold to the natural philosopher Robert Hooke in one of the earliest European coffeehouses, Breen shows how drugs have been entangled with science and empire from the very beginning.
Featuring numerous illuminating anecdotes and a cast of characters that includes merchants, slaves, shamans, prophets, inquisitors, and alchemists, The Age of Intoxication rethinks a history of drugs and the early drug trade that has too often been framed as opposites—between medicinal and recreational, legal and illegal, good and evil. Breen argues that, in order to guide drug policy toward a fairer and more informed course, we first need to understand who and what set the global drug trade in motion.
Focusing on the Portuguese colonies in Brazil and Angola and on the imperial capital of Lisbon, Breen examines the process by which novel drugs were located, commodified, and consumed. He then turns his attention to the British Empire, arguing that it owed much of its success in this period to its usurpation of the Portuguese drug networks. From the sickly sweet tobacco that helped finance the Atlantic slave trade to the cannabis that an East Indies merchant sold to the natural philosopher Robert Hooke in one of the earliest European coffeehouses, Breen shows how drugs have been entangled with science and empire from the very beginning.
Featuring numerous illuminating anecdotes and a cast of characters that includes merchants, slaves, shamans, prophets, inquisitors, and alchemists, The Age of Intoxication rethinks a history of drugs and the early drug trade that has too often been framed as opposites—between medicinal and recreational, legal and illegal, good and evil. Breen argues that, in order to guide drug policy toward a fairer and more informed course, we first need to understand who and what set the global drug trade in motion.
288 pages, Paperback
Published July 16, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 18, 2023
this book really made me want to try raw opium lol. really well written, academic without going overboard (though we did get into the weeds a bit with all the different Portuguese explorers/royalty), and overall gave a really great look into how drugs are “constructed“ literally and socially, as well as how fragile those constructions are. the globalization of drugs was just a series of theft, amnesia, and insane proto-rebrands :O
also filled with epic old drug illustrations/art ! v cool book!
also filled with epic old drug illustrations/art ! v cool book!
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June 26, 2020This book is a good intersection of drug history, global trading, native medicine, religious symbols and colonial missionaries. I love the art history background of the author that put Singerie as the cover painting, basically mocking human history and behaviours with monkeys.
January 7, 2020
In 1673, the days in which Britain is first starting to extend its influence to India, a young Brit named Thomas Bowrey encounters cannabis on the coast of India. His first thoughts are to commercialize the substance:
"Not long after he arrived in Machilipatnam, Thomas Bowrey began to wonder what it was the Machilitipatnamese were smoking. The bustling port city on India's Coromandel Coast felt fantastical to the young East India Company merchant. During the first days of his visit in 1673, Bowrey marveled at wonders like 'Venomous Serpents [which] danced' to the tune of 'a Musicianer, or rather Magician,' and 'all Sortes of fine Callicoes … curiously flowred.'
Above all, Bowrey was most fascinated by the effects of an unfamiliar drug. The Muslim merchant community in the city was, as Bowrey put it, 'averse [to] … any Stronge drinke.' Yet, he noted, 'they find means to besott themselves Enough with Bangha.' They consumed this 'Soe admirable herbe' in many forms, 'but not one of them that faileth to intoxicate them to admiration.' It could be chewed, made into a tea, or mixed with tobacco and smoked (this last technique, as we'll see in Chapter 5, was a recent innovation with far-reaching impact). Whatever the route of administration, Bowrey noted, this bangha was 'a very speedy way to be besotted.'
"Bowrey initially compared the effects of the drug to alcohol. Yet it seemed that bangha's properties were more complex, 'Operat[ing] accordinge to the thoughts or fancy' of those who consumed it. On the one hand, those who were 'merry at that instant, shall Continue Soe with Exceedinge great laughter,' he wrote, 'laughinge heartilie at Every thinge they discerne,' On the other hand, 'if it is taken in a fearefull or Melancholy posture,' the consumer could 'seem to be in great anguish of Spirit.' The drug seemed to be a kind of psychological mirror that reflected - or amplified - the inner states of consumers. Small wonder, then, that when Bowrey resolved to try it, he did so while hidden in a private home with 'all dores and Windows' closed. Bowrey explained that he and his colleagues feared that the people of Machilipatnam would 'come in to behold any of our humours thereby to laugh at us.'
"Bowrey's account of the resulting effects is worth quoting at length: 'It Soon tooke its Operation Upon most of us, but merrily, Save upon two of our Number, who I suppose feared it might doe them harme not beinge accustomed thereto. One of them Sat himself downe Upon the floore, and wept bitterly all the Afternoone; the Other terrified with feare did runne his head into a great Mortavan Jarre, and continued in that posture 4 hours or more; 4 or 5 of the number lay upon the Carpets (that were Spread in the roome) highly Complementing each Other in high terms, each man fancyinge himselfe noe lesse then an Emperour. One was quarralsome and fought with one of the wooden Pillars of the Porch, untill he had left himself little Skin upon the knuckles of his fingers.'
"Reckless self-experimentation with drugs is sometimes assumed to be a modern practice. Accounts like Bowrey's quickly disabuse us of this notion. Bowrey and his merchant friends were plainly interested in bangha (cannabis) as a recreational intoxicant, even if three of Bowrey's group seem to have found the experience to be less than optimal - to put it mildly.
"Bowrey, who would later author the first English dictionary of the Malay language, was what his contemporaries called a 'philosophical traveler.' His interest in bangha lay not only in its recreational value but also in its 'curiosity' as a wondrous substance with hidden properties. He was also keenly interested in discovering substances with the potential to become commodified. However, converting a drug like bangha into a global commodity was not easy. "
"Not long after he arrived in Machilipatnam, Thomas Bowrey began to wonder what it was the Machilitipatnamese were smoking. The bustling port city on India's Coromandel Coast felt fantastical to the young East India Company merchant. During the first days of his visit in 1673, Bowrey marveled at wonders like 'Venomous Serpents [which] danced' to the tune of 'a Musicianer, or rather Magician,' and 'all Sortes of fine Callicoes … curiously flowred.'
Above all, Bowrey was most fascinated by the effects of an unfamiliar drug. The Muslim merchant community in the city was, as Bowrey put it, 'averse [to] … any Stronge drinke.' Yet, he noted, 'they find means to besott themselves Enough with Bangha.' They consumed this 'Soe admirable herbe' in many forms, 'but not one of them that faileth to intoxicate them to admiration.' It could be chewed, made into a tea, or mixed with tobacco and smoked (this last technique, as we'll see in Chapter 5, was a recent innovation with far-reaching impact). Whatever the route of administration, Bowrey noted, this bangha was 'a very speedy way to be besotted.'
"Bowrey initially compared the effects of the drug to alcohol. Yet it seemed that bangha's properties were more complex, 'Operat[ing] accordinge to the thoughts or fancy' of those who consumed it. On the one hand, those who were 'merry at that instant, shall Continue Soe with Exceedinge great laughter,' he wrote, 'laughinge heartilie at Every thinge they discerne,' On the other hand, 'if it is taken in a fearefull or Melancholy posture,' the consumer could 'seem to be in great anguish of Spirit.' The drug seemed to be a kind of psychological mirror that reflected - or amplified - the inner states of consumers. Small wonder, then, that when Bowrey resolved to try it, he did so while hidden in a private home with 'all dores and Windows' closed. Bowrey explained that he and his colleagues feared that the people of Machilipatnam would 'come in to behold any of our humours thereby to laugh at us.'
"Bowrey's account of the resulting effects is worth quoting at length: 'It Soon tooke its Operation Upon most of us, but merrily, Save upon two of our Number, who I suppose feared it might doe them harme not beinge accustomed thereto. One of them Sat himself downe Upon the floore, and wept bitterly all the Afternoone; the Other terrified with feare did runne his head into a great Mortavan Jarre, and continued in that posture 4 hours or more; 4 or 5 of the number lay upon the Carpets (that were Spread in the roome) highly Complementing each Other in high terms, each man fancyinge himselfe noe lesse then an Emperour. One was quarralsome and fought with one of the wooden Pillars of the Porch, untill he had left himself little Skin upon the knuckles of his fingers.'
"Reckless self-experimentation with drugs is sometimes assumed to be a modern practice. Accounts like Bowrey's quickly disabuse us of this notion. Bowrey and his merchant friends were plainly interested in bangha (cannabis) as a recreational intoxicant, even if three of Bowrey's group seem to have found the experience to be less than optimal - to put it mildly.
"Bowrey, who would later author the first English dictionary of the Malay language, was what his contemporaries called a 'philosophical traveler.' His interest in bangha lay not only in its recreational value but also in its 'curiosity' as a wondrous substance with hidden properties. He was also keenly interested in discovering substances with the potential to become commodified. However, converting a drug like bangha into a global commodity was not easy. "
February 27, 2024
had to read for an course, actually good tho
January 11, 2024
*Audiobook
2.5 stars rounded up. The topic was interesting but it wasn't discussed in a way that appealed to me.
2.5 stars rounded up. The topic was interesting but it wasn't discussed in a way that appealed to me.
March 7, 2025
I would not choose this book normally. I had to read it for a college class and don't get me wrong it was interesting but I would rather read anything else. The book was not bad, he brought up some good points about the way that we view drugs and the formation of the drug trade. I did feel, however, that he was injecting his own beliefs on how drugs should be categorized into the book. That was also part of the reason I rated this book so low. I know some people who have read this may not share the same opinion I do about this but, I do feel he needed to take out his personal opinion on the drugs and just focus on the drugs themselves.
November 20, 2020
An interesting book which had a clear thesis that the author proves well. He does a nice job addressing how our view of legal and illegal drugs is shaped by culture and how that came into being in this era.
October 1, 2020
A not so long list of trivia facts, some of them of dubious quality to prove that the All Mighty Government should do another of those reforms. A low quality book for a low quality goal.
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February 13, 2024Great, kicking myself for not reading this during my thesis, though if I had it would have been difficult to avoid plagiarism
March 31, 2025
This book starts from sixteenth century Portugal and can be read as the beginning of the modern pharmaceutical industry, which contributes to the changing attitude towards drugs which shifts from exotic products towards medicine and drugs.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews