This is the second time I have read Marcy Norton's Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World, and I think it all the more interesting having now done so in a different context. Frankly, I think this is my favorite type of commodities history; in the sense that it focuses so heavily on the cultural effect. By following the things - how they are adapted, transformed, and ultimately utilized - throughout the web Norton is able to convincingly demonstrate their power.
As Luke points out, this work's primary concern is the social/cultural transformation that occurred as a result of chocolate and tobacco entering the European market. Further, I have to agree with Luke that her Enlightenment argument somewhat overreaches. That said, Norton does not go too far overboard.
Norton states on page 255, "The incorporation of tobacco and chocolate into European culture contributed to its secularization." These two commodities contributed in a big way to the evolution of European society (as Norton points out with... well, this book) by fundamentally transforming the social landscape. In effect, these commodities created new meeting places, social interactions, and conventions that enabled and encouraged people to sit around talking. Further, as Norton argues, these new conventions fractured the personal relationship between people and the church that dominated life. That is, at the very least, the start profound change.
While I have no problem with the postulation that the discovery of the New World contributed to the social environment that eventually allowed the Enlightenment to take place, I argue that had more to do with the general expansion of knowledge resulting from the Columbian exchange rather than the social settings created by these new commodities. As proof of this I ask why was then Spain (and Iberia in general) to remain a very conservative and religious country well into the 19th century. And why was it that in the 17th century, the period she says tobacco and chocolate really took off as commodities, did Europe experience an explosion of religious sentiment that resulted in among other things incredibly destructive wars and the height of the witch burnings? While her description of the effects of these commodities may be accurate I think her characterization of them is flawed.
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