Written by R.R. Hubbard Tuesday, 05 January 2010 23:54
The "Age of Enlightenment" was a time in world history that was characterized by massive revolutions in thought, government, religion, arts, science, economics, and humanity. Beginning roughly with the publications of philosopher René Descartes philosophical and mathematical rationalizations of the 1630's, and ending with the French Revolution in 1789, the movement was a general call to arms from a world escaping the "dark ages" of European Middle History. The movement could best be summarized by one word: "rebellion". The people questioned, and subsequently rejected, the authority of their kings and governments. The "rationalists" (as they were known) pondered the authority of the Church in presiding over God's laws. Science was elevated into something beyond the blasphemous alchemy that it was viewed as previously. Philosophy was seen as something important and potentially dangerous, and not just as something that homosexual poets wrote to impress one another. The poor rebelled against the rich ruling class, and the "bourgeois" were put to death in violent, public coups.
Read more: Tobacco, the American Revolutions of 1776.....and 2010?
To kick off my new column, I wanted to take a look over the course of the next couple of articles at the long history of snus in America. That's right- snus in America. You may be surprised to learn that snus has been here almost as long as it has been in Sweden, and it didn't just pop up overnight when RJR dropped the Camel SNUS bomb. The Swedes have been immigrating here, off and on, steadily for the last two hundred years, and they've always brought their snus with them.
