240090 SE VM5 / VM2 - Drugs and Empires (2019W)

Throughout human history drugs have played a major role in the political economy and culture of empires. Their production, trade and consumption have been important constituents of the relations between centres and peripheries within empires and a major source of the extraction and accumulation of value. The seminar intends to investigate this relationship between the production, distribution and consumption of drugs and the constitution of empires on a global scale in a wide historical perspective spanning from antiquity to the present.

In this seminar, we define drugs as naturally occurring substances that have been consumed by almost every society in history for their mind- or mood-altering properties. This broad definition thus not only includes narcotics like opium, cocaine or heroin, but all kinds of alcohol as well as tobacco, sugar, tea, cacao and coffee. Empires are seen as polities with political and military dominion of populations who are culturally and ethnically distinct from the imperial ethnic group and its culture. They extend relations of hegemony over territorial spaces for the purpose of extracting and centralizing value. This definition includes formal as well as informal empires.

After several sessions of intense reading and input, students are required to deliver a research proposal by week 9. In weeks 11, 12 and 13 students present the drafts of their seminar papers (at least 50% of the final paper). The final papers are due on 29 February 2020.

Possible research topics include (among others):

- Greek colonization of the Mediterranean area and the diffusion of viticulture
- Wine and the Roman Empire
- Beer and the merchant empire of the Hansa
- Coffee and Islamic Empires
- Sugar and the Atlantic plantation complex
- Tobacco and the Atlantic plantation complex
- Brandy and the Castilian Empire
- Vodka and the Russian Empire
- Tea and the British Empire
- Opium and the British Empire
- Cacao and the colonization of Africa
- Cocaine and US imperialism in Latin America
- Heroin in Afghanistan, the Golden Triangle and War in Southeast Asia
- War on Drugs and the informal US empire

Schedule:

OVERVIEW

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: Drugs. The Big Three: Alcohol, Tobacco and Caffeine.
David Courtwright, Forces of Habit. Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. Harvard University Press (2001).

Week 3: Drugs. The Little Three: Opium, Cannabis and Coca.
David Courtwright, Forces of Habit. Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. Harvard University Press (2001).

METHODS AND THEORIES

Week 4: Empires.
Stephen Howe, Empire. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press (2002).

Week 5: Commodity Chains – a conceptual tool.
Immanuel Wallerstein and Terence K. Hopkins, ‘Commodity Chains in the World-Economy Prior to 1800’, in: Immanuel Wallerstein, The Essential Wallerstein. The New Press (2000).
Steven Topik, ‘Historicizing Commodity chains. Five Hundred Years of the Global Coffee Commodity Chain.’, in: Jeniffer Bair (ed.), Frontiers of Commodity Chain Research. Stanford University Press (2009).

EMPIRICAL EXAMPLES

Week 6: Sugar.
Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History. Penguin Books (1986/1985).

Week 7: Opium
Carl Trocki, Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy. Routledge (1999).

Week 8: Cocaine
Paul Gootenberg (ed.), Cocaine. Global Histories. Routledge (1999).

RESEARCH

Week 9: Individual Consultations: Discussing written proposals and bibliography

Week 10: How to write a seminar paper
Umberto Eco, How to Write a Thesis. The MIT Press (2015/1977).

Week 11: Students present the drafts of their seminar papers.

Week 12: Students present the draft of their seminar papers.

Week 13: Students present the draft of their seminar papers.

Week 14: Conclusion