Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants [Paperback]

Wolfgang Schivelbusch (Author), David Jacobson (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 29, 1993 | ISBN-10: 067974438X | ISBN-13: 978-0679744382

From the extravagant use of pepper in the Middle Ages to the Protestant bourgeoisie's love of coffee to the reason why fashionable Europeans stopped sniffing tobacco and starting smoking it, Schivelbusch looks at how the appetite for pleasure transformed the social structure of the Old World. Illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This social history of pleasure-producing substances covers the Middle Ages to the modern era from the perch of an adroit and amiable Marxist sociology. Illustrations.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-- A lavishly illustrated, anecdotal survey of all of the substances we chew, drink, or inhale for pleasure and how they were discovered and adopted by humankind. The book shows in fascinating detail how each stimulant, spice, or intoxicant served a particular need for an individual culture and how each, in turn, affected that culture and its behavioral norms. There is no index, but the table of contents is extensive, making it both an effective research tool and an enjoyable source of recreational reading.
- Richard Lisker, Fairfax Public Library, VA
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage Books (June 29, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067974438X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679744382
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,938 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as piquant as I had hoped..., February 5, 2002

By 

Keith Smith (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants (Paperback)

This just had to be a subject right up my alley. Spices? I live in Texas where Tabasco is a condiment (and not a spice) and jalapenos are considered vegetables. Stimulants? I have a coffee cup surgically attached to my hand and Brazilian music runs constantly through my head. Intoxicants? I worship beer. What could be better than a book about all three subjects?

Tastes of Paradise considers the social use of and social importance of spices, stimulants, and intoxicants largely from a Western point of view. It covers the use of spices, the coffee-related ethic of the middle class, chocolate, the rise of smoking and snuff, alchohol and the industrial revolution, and the rituals and places surrounding our drinking. What more could we talk about?

Turns out there's a lot more we could talk about, and what would be better is a book that really covers all three subjects. My disappointment boils down to three basic complaints against the book. The first is by far the broadest. In including "a social history" in the title, Schivelbusch focuses almost exclusively on the social effect of the use of the particular stimulant or intoxicant. Nowhere does he discuss the broader history of the item or the impact of the item on society (read "The True History of Chocolate" for a broader and more thorough presentation on chocolate, for example). My second complaint regards his treatment of specific subjects. Spices get remarkably short shrift (twelve pages total; less space than the discussion of drinking rituals; "Nathaniel's Nutmeg" is a better presentation on spices as a whole), and tea is only considered from the point of view of England (I'm pretty sure that the Chinese and Japanese drank tea, and that there's some social history there). Finally, there are more illustrations in this book than in most elementary school readers.

The book is immensely readable, does include -some- interesting illustrations, and covers admirably the impact on western society of the most popular stimulants and intoxicants from the 1600's to the late 1800's. However, there's an enormous amount that isn't there (except for the extra illustrations; those are presented wholesale), and in that the book disappoints.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging and readable, August 9, 2000

By 

A. Donath (St. Peter, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants (Paperback)

Schivelbusch's Tastes of Paradise provides a refreshingly light-hearted, yet engaging glimpse at some of the substances which, through our stomachs, lungs, and palates, have played a not insignificant role in personal and cultural interactions of European civilizations. Concentrating primarily on western societies between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, Schivelbusch devotes over 50 pages to each of the subjects of coffee, tobacco, and alcohol; he also includes ample discussion of the historical role of chocolate, spices, and nineteenth-century opiates. I read this book as part of a college-level World History class (middle ages- present) and found it to be an enjoyable and worthwhile complement to novels, primary sources, and textbook readings we studied. Spread out in small doses over the course of the semester, it provided an unusual vantage point from which major themes such as Industrialism, Christianity, Romanticism, and social class structures could be more readily understood. Over 100 black-and-white reproductions of period art enhance Schivelbusch's lively discussion of the material. Without suggesting that these substances played an unrealistically inflated role in history, Schivelbusch offers a highly accessible discussion equally suitable for the student or casual reader.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Matter of Usage, November 29, 2006

By 

Lynn Hoffman, author:The Short Course in Beer (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants (Paperback)

I must beg to differ with my fellow reviewers about

the merits of this book. I do agree that the treatment

of individual spices is cursory and that the lack of

an index is a disappointment. What I find to praise

here is perhaps the very thing that others find to blame.

Schivelbusch has a point of view that is rooted in

wanting to discover the attitudes, behavior and beliefs

that underlay the European fascination with spicing foods.

He offers a coherent theory-a combination of exoticism and

social climbing. Then examines the consequences of this

fascination in art, literature and society at large.

So this is not an encyclopedia or even a particularly

good guide to sources. Some of that can be better found

in drier accounts like Andrew Dalby's DANGEROUS TASTES.

TASTES OF PARADISE is an accessible and interesting

account of the place that spices, stimulants and intoxicants

have in our world. It is a brisk chronicle of what we have

done with them and what they have done to us, and as that

I recommend it hightly.

--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and

the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.ISBN 9781601640005