Cinnamon: a history of taste and empire

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 to 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 from 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.

'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

'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

'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