An interesting treatment that focuses on the social aspects of technology, and a useful reminder of way of life that seems long past but is chronologically recent.

This rather obscure book shouldn't be; a very meticulous and perceptive history of an important subject, the history of artificial light, Schivelbusch provides excellent research but, significantly, adds unexpected observations along the way, such as the political dimension of artificial light, light as an expression of statist control. Highly recommended.

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.

And I see from the reviews below that I wasn't the only one. The author has really picked a fascinating subject, and brings it to life, weaving together strands of economics, sociology, geography, and chemistry to explain some of the impacts that these now-commonplace items have had on Western culture. (And what impacts our culture has had on the items - did you know that chocolate was a drink for monks and aristocrats before it became a snack for children?)

But the book is far too short. Many subjects are merely glanced over, and the illustrations, in addition to being so numerous as to be suspected of being filler, are often dark and hard to make out. I would have rather seen the author do a book this size on any one of the various subjects at hand - just coffee, say, or just pepper - and really explored it in depth.

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.

This boring look at the Industrialization of Europe by the railroad will have you hating to turn the page. It is horrifying, read 20 pages take a break (probably a nap) then try and read 20 more.

In the last few decades historians --following sociologists such as Durkheim-- have turned their attention to the ways in which new technologies have altered people's experience of space and time. Schivelbusch's small piece is a pretty good (but light-weight) example of this genre. He reveals some interesting trivia along the way: he tells, for example, how padded upolstery was invented to assuage the fears of first-class passengers brought about by the roughness of new speed; he shows that compartment design in passenger cars reflect the contrasting social values of Europe and America. But he is at his most interesting when describing the ways in which the railroad created new conceptual forms of geographical distance by obliterating the spaces in between destinations. Furthermore, by creating the need for standardized time-tables, railways nurtured a standardized/homogenized conception of time. Local idiocyncracies became less important. Doubtless true national identities could never have emerged without revolutions in transportation and communications. A book that takes these ideas much further is Stephen Kern's excellent work "The Culture of Time and Space." If this genre interests you, Kern's book is an important read.