Description

The sweeping cultural history of a spice so coveted it launched empires across oceans, reshaped global trade, and bound generations of Sri Lankan peelers to colonial rule.

For millennia, cinnamon has been treasured for its healing powers and warm, unmistakable aroma. But behind its familiar scent lies a tumultuous past steeped in conquest and rebellion. In Cinnamon, acclaimed historian Nira Wickramasinghe traces the remarkable story of this ‘queen of spices’, from ancient Egyptian embalming tables and medieval Mughal kitchens to disastrous expeditions in search of mythical cinnamon lands in the Americas and the fierce imperial rivalries of the Portuguese, Dutch, and British. She reveals how global demand for ‘true’ cinnamon transformed Sri Lanka, where an entire caste of peelers, neither enslaved nor free, were compelled to harvest the bark under systems of semi-servitude, at times rising up in rebellion.

Drawing on meticulously researched global history and mythology, Wickramasinghe brings to life the smugglers, merchants, cooks, botanists, conquerors, and peelers who built the cinnamon trade. A vivid journey across centuries and continents, Cinnamon is the definitive portrait of a spice through which the turmoil and richness of our world come alive.

Publisher Review

‘A meticulously researched and fascinating journey, tracing the path of one of the world’s most fought-over commodities through colonial, global, and labour history, with remarkable insight into the strange “privileged servitude” of Sri Lanka’s cinnamon peelers.’ — Alan Lester, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Sussex, and editor of The Truth About Empire ‘A captivating journey through time, and across the globe, unravelling the mythology around this extraordinary spice. Nira Wickramasinghe covers it all: from the use of cinnamon in death rituals, to the popularity behind today’s ubiquitous cinnamon bun – I had no idea that a single spice could contain so much.’ — Shahnaz Ahsan, author of The Jackfruit Chronicles ‘From the Hebrew Bible to Sappho and Hippocrates, and from legacies of slavery and enduring techniques of its Sri Lankan peelers all the way to mythical accounts of immortality trees on the moon, Nira Wickramasinghe takes us into fascinating voyages of a mysterious, sensuous, medicinal, and spiritual tree bark. The ethereal spice that once seduced the world, and now resides unceremoniously in your kitchen will never seem the same to you.’ — Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim, author of ReOrienting Histories of Medicine Praise for Metallic Modern:

‘This is a fascinating book, rich in ideas about what we do with technology’s reception and reconstitution in the colonial world.’ * South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies * Praise for Metallic Modern:

‘This is a most engaging book from a well-known author … a timely contribution concerning an important subject that is attracting renewed and sustained interest from historians of late.’ * Crispin Bates, University of Edinburgh * Praise for Metallic Modern:

‘Once every few years, a book comes along to transform the study of modern South Asia: this is such a book … [It] is deeply scholarly and yet playful; it is both empirically thorough and rich with metaphor. The book is a model of a way of writing history – non-linear, allusive, braided together – that reflects its arguments and materials. Form and content work together perfectly, and this makes Metallic Modern a wonderful read: the book is as enjoyable as it is stimulating.’ * Sunil Amrith, University of London * Praise for Slave in a Palanquin:

‘Slave in a Palanquin is one of the most remarkable and original works I have read on the history of the Indian Ocean. With her enormous scholarly gifts, Wickramasinghe endeavors to recover what she calls “fugitive lives”, a project that is as much as anything a meditation on the archive of slavery- its silences, fractures, and unexpected shards of illumination. — Sunil Amrith, author of Unruly Waters * Itinerario * Praise for Slave in a Palanquin:

‘At once humane, lucid, intelligent, and highly innovative, this is a masterly analysis of the various regimes of slavery in Sri Lanka under both Dutch and British colonial rule, their demise, and the reasons they were forgotten. Nira Wickramasinghe has produced a major work of comparative scholarship.’ — Robert Ross, author of The Borders of Race in Colonial South Africa: The Kat River Settlement, 1829-1856 Praise for Slave in a Palanquin:

‘Remarkable … A major contribution to the global history of slavery and labour.’ — Jessica Hinchy * American Historical Review *