This cultural, political, and social history of tea presents a " fascinating picture of tea's impact on the lives of millions of people around the world." ( Publishers Weekly)From Darjeeling to Lapsang Souchon, from India to Japan—a fresh, concise, world-encompassing exploration of the way tea has shaped politics, culture, and the environment throughout history. From the fourth century BC in China, where it was used as an aid in Buddhist m...

A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY THROUGH JAPAN'S MULTI-FACETED CUSTOMS AND CULTURE'An excellent book for anyone with an interest in Japanese culture' Sunday Telegraph'Takes in everything from the mythical roots of sumo to the ubiquity of Shinto shrines' The TimesAlan Macfarlane first encountered Japan full of certainty, confidence and unexamined assumptions. He soon found his preconceptions challenged on every front - as generations of visiti...

In a frank and unpretentious series of letters addressed to a teenage granddaughter, this highly original book teaches us to know and understand the world we live in and its rules, and how to behave in it. In these thirty letters, Alan Macfarlane answers his granddaughter's questions about how the world works, how it got to be as it is, what it could be, and where she fits in. Lily's enquiries range from the intimate, personal and moral to the political, social and philosophical. What is t...

Creative Lives and Works: Antony Hewish, Martin Rees and Neil Turok is a collection of interviews conducted by one of England’s leading social anthropologists and historians, Professor Alan Macfarlane. Filmed over a period of 40 years, the three conversations in this volume, are part of a larger set of interviews that cut across various disciplines, from the social sciences, the sciences and to even the performing and visual arts. The current volume on three of England’s foremost astrophys...

Apart from water, tea is more widely consumed than any other food or drink. Tens of billions of cups are drunk every day. How and why has tea conquered the world? Tea was the first global product. It altered life-styles, religions, etiquette and aesthetics. It raised nations and shattered empires.Economies were changed out of all recognition. Diseases were thwarted by the magical drink and cities founded on it.The industrial revolution was fuelled by tea, sealing the fate of...

A narrative history of glass from discovery, through antiquity, the Enlightenment, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions to the present. It charts the history of the technology but also the enabling effects of glass on such aspects of civilization as experimental science, perspective, astronomy, zoology and all manner of scientific instrumentation - plus the central role of window-glass technology in making the colder north habitable. The authors show how the divergence in glass techno...

Science and Culture: Lisa Jardine, Jean Michel Massing and Simon Schaffer is a collection of interviews that are being published as a book for the first time. These interviews have been conducted by one of England’s leading social anthropologists and historians, Professor Alan Macfarlane.Filmed over a period of several years, the three conversations in this volume are part of the series Creative Lives and Works. These transcriptions form a part of a larger set of interview...

From Antiquity to Ethnography: Keith Thomas, Brian Harrison and Peter Burke is the first time a collection of these interviews is being published as a book. They have been conducted by one of England’s leading social anthropologists and historians, Professor Alan Macfarlane.Filmed over a period of several years, the three conversations in this volume are part of the series Creative Lives and Works. These transcriptions form a part a larger set of interviews that cut across...

The Science of Life: Andrew Huxley, Richard Keynes and Horace Barlow is part of the series Creative Lives and Works. It is a collection of interviews conducted by one of England’s leading social anthropologists and historians, Professor Alan Macfarlane. Filmed over a period of 40 years, the three conversations in this volume are part of a larger set of interviews that cut across various disciplines—from the social sciences, the sciences, to the performing and visual arts....

Historical Ethnography and Peasant Societies: McKim Marriott, James Scott and Maurice Bloch is a collection of interviews that is being published as a book for the first time. These interviews have been conducted by a leading British social anthropologist and historian, Professor Alan Macfarlane. Filmed over a period of several years, the three conversations in this volume are a part of the series Creative Lives and Works. These transcriptions cut across various disciplin...

Of Poverty and Wealth: Eric Hobsbawm, Barry Supple and Gareth Stedman Jones is a collection of interviews that is being published as a book for the first time. These interviews have been conducted by one of England’s leading social anthropologists and historians, Professor Alan Macfarlane.Filmed over a period of several years, the three conversations in this volume are part of the series Creative Lives and Works. These transcriptions form a part of a larger set of intervie...

Imperialism and Colonialism: Christopher Bayly, Richard Rathbone and Richard Drayton is a collection of interviews that are being published as a book for the first time. These interviews have been conducted by one of England’s leading social anthropologists and historians, Professor Alan Macfarlane. Filmed over a period of several years, the three conversations in this volume are part of the series Creative Lives and Works. These transcriptions form a part of a larger set of inter...