BREAD OF DREAMS: FOOD AND FANTASY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE

Book ID/图书代码： 06556519C00001

English Summary/英文概要： Piero Camporesi is one of the most original and exciting cultural historians in Europe today. In this remarkable book he examines the imaginative world of poor and ordinary people in pre-industrial Europe, exploring their everyday preoccupations, fears and fantasies. Camporesi develops the startling claim that many people in early modern Europe lived in a state of almost permanent hallucination, drugged by their hunger or by bread adulterated with hallucinogenic herbs. The use of opiate products, administered even to children and infants, was widespread and was linked to a popular mythology in which herbalists and exorcists were important cultural figures. Through a careful reconstruction of the everyday imaginative life of peasants, beggars and the poor, Camporesi presents a vivid and disconcerting image of early modern Europe as a vast laboratory of dreams. The book should be of interest to university students and academics in medieval and early modern European history, literature, sociology and anthropology; and general readers interested in life in pre-industrial Europe.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： Piero Camporesi是當今歐洲最具原創性且最令人興奮的文化歷史學者之一。在這本有趣的書中，他探討了前工業化歐洲的窮人和平凡百姓的世界，探索他們日常忙碌的瑣事、恐懼和幻想。

Camporesi發展了一個令人吃驚的說法，即近代歐洲早期的許多人因為飢餓感或食用了摻有迷幻草藥的麵包，以致於幾乎經常處於一種嗑藥般的迷幻狀態。當時對鴉片製品的使用也很普遍，甚至對兒童和嬰兒也是如此，這與當時普遍流行的迷思有關，在這當中草藥師和驅魔師扮演了重要的文化角色。

Camporesi仔細的重建了想像中的農民、乞丐和窮人的日常生活，呈現出早期近代歐洲生動而令人不安的圖像，宛如一間巨大的幻想實驗室。

本書能吸引起對中世紀和早期近代歐洲歷史、文學、社會學和人類學有興趣的大學生和學者，也適合對前工業化歐洲生活感興趣的一般大眾閱讀。

『這本學術性和令人驚嘆的書涵蓋了前現代的南歐，關注的不是貴族，而是普通民眾：農民、城市居民，義大利的許多乞丐和窮人，以及少部分的法國人。 Camporesi提出了一個令人吃驚的理論：歐洲人生活在各種持續存在的「集體眩暈」狀態，即由飢餓或食用受污染的食物引起的幻覺和疾病，這在當時很常見。Camporesi斷言，這種狀況得到了各種醫療、社會和宗教機構的推動和加劇。（例如，波隆納的醫療機構將食物「醫療性地」分成「給富人的食物」和「給窮人的食物」，導致許多額外的生命損失。）飢餓是許多人生活的常態。...在大飢荒的年代，人們經常只能食用「令人難以置信和令人反感的東西」，而這往往會帶來致命的結果。充滿著「可怕的噪音、蠕蟲、害蟲、鬼魂和地精，」此外還有鴉片、異象、有毒的酒、驅魔、暴力、死亡和更多的死亡。本書充滿了來自文學、政治史、醫學、宗教史以及當代敘述的證據。』

──亞馬遜讀者Eileen G.推薦

中文书讯/Zoe 2019-1-10

Awards/获奖情况：

About the Author/作者介绍： Piero Camporesi was one of the twentieth century’s most original and exciting historians, whose work on popular beliefs, habits, folklore and consumption patterns revolutionized our understanding of the culture and mentalités of ancien régime Europe. For many years a professor at the University of Bologna, Camporesi weaved together a keen literary ability with the rigour of an historian and the interpretative skill of an anthropologist. His astonishing intellectual range saw him map the imaginative and symbolic world of ordinary people in medieval and early modern Europe in areas ranging from food, drink and drugs to religious rituals and magical beliefs. His treatment of these themes brilliantly interpreted the unfamiliar and disconcerting assumptions and beliefs of past eras in their own terms. Polity has published many of his books, including Bread of Dreams, Anatomy of the Senses, Magic Harvest and The Land of Hunger.

Format:HARDCOVER

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：

原文第一章内容：暂无

手稿：暂无

大纲：暂无