2. Asia-centered world economy taking shape since the rise of Islam
in the seventh century
Most rulers allowed traders of all faiths to move freely from port
to port
Density of exchange also favored the worldwide diffusion of
knowledge and products
3. goods considered drugs, that is,
products ingested, smoked, sniffed,
or drunk to produce an altered state
of being, have been central to exchange
and consumption
Both European and Asian consumers became
addicted to these American, Asian, and African
products
4. Europeans had theories that explained Indians'
failure in commerce: Indians were racially
inferior, lazy, and, most of all, uninterested in
profit
urge to barter and truck was strong enough to
push goods over two thousand miles
5. potatoe "discovered" by Spanish soldiers in the
Peruvian Andes in the 1550s
Considered a second-class
food even in its homeland
Potatoes were important
in the Andes for simple reasons:
1. grow at extremely high altitudes
2. withstanding frosts
3. required little labor
6. Arabs were the first great sugar cultivators
Egyptian sugar was regarded as the world's
finest
Other Europeans became
familiar with this new
plant as they battled their
way to Jerusalem during
the Crusades
7. natives smoked, cooked
licked, ate, and snorted
Tobacco
They offered tobacco to
their gods, plied their women
with it, and pulverized it into
enema formulas
8. Europeans were slow to adopt the coffee habit
for several reasons
as a Muslim drink it was viewed as heretical
Turkish fashion of a very thick, hot, black
unsweetened drink did not please European
palates
the rather rare caffeine
spice or drug was quite
expensive
9. Cacao was considered to be a stimulant,
intoxicant, hallucinogen, and aphrodisiac
The drink also served as a cure for anxiety,
fever, and coughs
chocolate was commonly
drunk with chile peppers,
flowers that resembled black
pepper, the seeds of the
pizle–which gave a bitter
almond taste
