Description
Book SynopsisImported schnapps gin has a remarkable history in West Africa. Gin was imported in great quantities between 1880 and World War I, when its consumption showed access to the modern, international world. Subsequently schnapps was transformed into a good that signified traditional, local culture. Today, imported schnapps has high status because of its importance for African ritual and as symbol of the status of chiefs and elders, but actual consumption is limited. This book explores this unexpected trajectory of commoditisation to investigate how imported goods acquire specific local meanings. This analysis of consumption and marketing of gin contributes to our understanding of patterns of consumption, rejection and appropriation within processes of identity formation, elite formation, and the redefinition of community in colonial and postcolonial West Africa.
Trade Review"This book is both provocative and subversive. The evidence that van den Bersselaar provides for his central argument—that “imported goods are likely to be incorporated into African consumptive patterns in ways that make sense in the context of existing yet continually changing African world views, .....” — has important implications not only for our understanding of modern West African history but for broader scholarship on consumption and commodities as well. Better yet, it’s a pleasure to read". Charles Ambler in"African Studies Review 2008 “Like many commodity histories, van den Bersselaar’s book successfully combines aspects of economic, political and social history with, in this case, excursions into the history of trade law and advertising” Insa Nolte in Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 23, No 2 (Spring, 2009)
Table of ContentsChapter 1. Introduction: foreign imports, local meanings Chapter 2. The Rise of Gin Chapter 3. Becoming the King of Drinks Chapter 4. ‘Bird gin’ and ‘money gin’: brands and marketing Chapter 5. Poison or medicine? Changing perceptions of Dutch gin Chapter 6. ‘Your very good health!’ Gin for an independent West Africa Chapter 7. Schnapps gin from modernity to tradition Chapter 8. Bibliography Index
