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 ...

The modern age to dovetail with the needs of the rising merchant class and the capitalism it spawned. How the hunger for spices mobilized the Occident's energies with an ...

This rich and captivating book tells the story of how humanity transformed its history in the course of finding the rare condiments, stimulants, intoxicants, and narcotics that ...