Vermeer's Hat

Brook looks at the good and bad effects of transculturation as globalization begins growing in the seventeenth century. In the “School for Smoking” chapter, Brook references Fernando Ortiz, a Cuban theologian, who says that transculturation is “the process by which habits and things move from one culture to another so thoroughly that they become part of it and in turn change the culture which they have moved.” Brook uses Ortiz’s definition to describe the adoption of smoking by cultures very different from the native cultures where smoking originated. Though smoking inadvertently played a role in helping to globalize the seventeenth century, its effects are still felt today by European and Asian countries.

A positive aspect of the transculturation of smoking and tobacco was the bringing together of people. The desire for tobacco meant that cultures were constantly encountering one another. Europeans were learning about other cultures by understanding the role of smoking in those cultures. In China, an entire culture of smoking grew up around tobacco, changing the face of polite society and adding a “positive” hobby for the Chinese to aspire to. In places such as Tibet, smoking made its way into religion, with one of the most formidable Tibetan deities shown to be smoking from a human femur.