Getting High

John Charles Chasteen is a North Carolina writer, translator of Spanish and Portuguese, and, for twenty-five years, professor of history at UNC Chapel Hill, where he was born (on campus) in 1955. His classic Born in Blood and Fire is among the most widely read histories of Latin America in the English language. Chasteen’s abiding scholarly interest has been the emotional roots of nation and nationalism in nineteenth-century Latin America. His books on the topic include Heroes on Horseback: A Life and Times of the Last Gaucho Caudillos, National Rhythms, African Roots: A Deep History of Latin American Popular Dance , and Americanos: Latin America’s Struggle for Independence. Chasteen is also an award-winning editor and translator of Latin American fiction and non-fiction, most recently The Alienist and Other Stories of Nineteenth-Century Brazil by the Brazilian literary master Joaquim Machado de Assis and The Gaucho Juan Moreira, the classic Argentine “true crime” saga by Eduardo Gutiérrez. He has a bilingual screenplay adaptation of W. H. Hudson’s The Purple Land, if anyone knows a producer. He lives with his wife, Carmen, in the countryside near Chapel Hill.

Chapter One: Getting High
Trouble with the Police
Meet the Cannabis Plant
Chapter Two: American Century
The Early Years
The Marihuana Tax Act, 1937
Rise and Fall of the Counterculture
Drug War, Culture War
Chapter Three: Atlantic World
Hemp and Rum, Strategic Resources
Mexico, and a Mystery
Colombia and Jamaica
Brazil and the African Connection
Africa, South of the Congo River
Chapter Four: Medieval Hashish
Wine versus Hashish
Hashish Eaters
God’s Unruly Friends
The Assassin Legend
Not for Everybody
Chapter Five: Asian Origins
Historic India
The Prehistoric Eurasian Steppes
The Silk Road and Beyond
The Earliest Horizon
Chapter Six: Epiphanies

Glossary
Sources and Asides
Index
About the Author