HIDEOUS ABSINTHE: A HISTORY OF THE DEVIL IN THE BOTTLE

摘要

By choosing this provocative title, the author reflects the ambiguous feelings of repulsion and attraction that the reader experiences as they read this book. It brings forth the entire range of preoccupations, fears, and attractions that crystallize in the debate that surrounds absinthe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This book seeks to show the implications and conditions by which this drink influenced the artistic works of the day. By retracing the biographies of artists and people who had a privileged tie to absinthe, the author creates a historiography of this drink that mixes information of all kinds on the evolution of the uses of absinthe and the discourses that characterize the product, through a discussion of art, science, and politics. In order to do this, Jad Adams does not hesitate to call on sources such as mythology, folklore, encyclopedias, medical literature, novels, and journalism. Unfortunately, this is largely done without systematically checking sources outside of the texts cited.