About

Focusing on four European cities between 1600 and 1850 – Amsterdam, Hamburg, London, and Stockholm – this three-year project (2019–22) explored the impact of new intoxicants on urban public spaces, the role of urban public spaces in assimilating them into European behaviours, and the often exploitative international systems through which they were produced, trafficked, and consumed. Via our publications, events, online exhibition, and work with schools, museums, and NGOs, we demonstrated that understanding these processes offers a vital historical perspective on urgent contemporary questions surrounding drug use and abuse, addiction, migration, inclusion and exclusion within public spaces, and the place of intoxicating substances within everyday life.