The King of Drinks

Schnapps Gin from Modernity to Tradition
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-90-04-16091-0
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 18, 284 Seiten, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 243 mm, Gewicht: 517 g

Reihe: African Social Studies Series

Imported 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bersselaar, Dmitri van den

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Regionalwissenschaften, Regionalstudien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 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

Über Autor(innen)

Dmitri van den Bersselaar, Ph.D. (1998), Leiden University, is Lecturer in African History at the University of Liverpool. He has published on the social and cultural history of nineteenth and twentieth century Ghana and Nigeria