This week I'm reading 'The Empire of Tea' by Alan MacFarlane
This is a nonfiction history looking at the rise of tea in human society and mainly how it shaped and was shaped by the British Empire with a particular focus on the efforts to develop tea production in the Assam region of India.
It's okay so far, a little unfocused at times, and I'm hoping that later on it becomes more critical of imperialism.
I'm also listening to 'Excession' by Iain M. Banks as an audiobook.
It's a delight to be back in the Culture again, and with a longform narrative, since my last Culture book was an anthology.
This was a new edition by Orbit that broken on release, but seems to be corrected. I may have to go back and read this in print, since I think I may be missing things as I listen while driving.
may I recommend also _The Great Hedge of India_, Moxham, which is also about tea and salt and the hedge and archives and the rise and dissolution of the British Empire?
@fskornia Ages ago when I read it there was a little flutter of people finding relevant stuff in different archives
iirc someone researching cavalry narratives found a reference in a letter by someone who *saw the dead hedge burning in the distance*
Ten minutes out of history, that might be the only surviving reference in English, and it didn't even make it into the book
Frank Skornia
clew