Description
Book SynopsisIn this authoritative history of cannabis in Africa, Chris S. Duvall challenges what readers thought they knew about cannabis by correcting widespread myths, outlining its relationship to slavery and colonialism, and highlighting Africa's centrality to knowledge about and the consumption of one of the world's most ubiquitous plants.
Trade Review"Offers a great example of why geographers, historians, and other professionally trained humanists need to keep writing about cannabis: these are the only people who can explain and contextualize the racist and colonialist assumptions baked into much of the most widely read literature on the plant. . . . The academic literature on cannabis may never be the same after
The African Roots of Marijuana." -- Nick Johnson * Points: The Blog of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society *
"This book will be a worthwhile addition to any university library and is especially useful for law schools and for programs in criminology, criminal justice, sociology, and history. . . . Highly recommended. All readership levels." -- D. R. Kavish * Choice *
"Essential reading for anyone with interests in African ethnobotany or cannabis history, and more broadly, will be of value to those interested in the history of nineteenth-century Africa or of slavery." -- Wendy L. Applequist * Economic Botany *
"The book is richly detailed and reflects years of sustained effort. . . . All in all, this is an excellent piece of scholarship. It should interest anyone with a curiosity about the history of cannabis, Africa, or the geography of drugs." -- Barney Warf * Journal of Historical Geography *
"Rumors that become published facts in high-end publications and prestigious medical journals are the mainstay of histories of marijuana. Chris S. Duvall, in a magnificently researched and clearly written book, sets right this historiography. . . . Duvall does a brilliant job in consulting available archaeological evidence, carefully studying the spread of words, and, most of all, drawing on sometimes little-studied European observers, especially Portuguese expeditions into the Central African interior. His judicious combination of all of these sources, combined with critical judgement, is convincing and a pleasure to read." -- David M. Gordon * International Journal of African Historical Studies *
"
The African Roots of Marijuana is a path-breaking work of scholarship. . . . This work represents a singular scholarly achievement, both in the history of cannabis globally and in its history on the African continent." -- Charles Ambler * Bulletin of the History of Medicine *
“As African history remains on the fringe of some studies, Chris Duvall’s
The African Roots of Marijuana provides a solid foundation for the agency of African people and the central function that the continent plays in the expansion of global transactions.”
-- Paul Hoelscher * World History Connected *
Table of ContentsPart I. Introduction: Pay Attention to African Cannabis
1. Cannabis and Africa 3
2. Race and Plant Evolution 33
Part II. Evidence: How Cannabis Came to Africa, What Happened to it There, and How It Crossed the Atlantic
3. Roots of African Cannabis Cultures 53
4. Cannabis Colonizes the Continent 72
5. A Convenient Crop 95
6. Society Overturned: The Bena Riamba 112
7. Cannabis Crosses the Atlantic 125
Part III. Discussion and Conclusions: What Carried Cannabis?
8. Working under the Influence 159
9. Buying and Banning 184
10. Rethinking Marijuana 216
Acknowledgments 231
Notes 233
Index 341
