The hallucinogenic and medicinal effects of peyote have a storied history that begins well before Europeans arrived in the Americas. While some have attempted to explain the cultural and religious significance of this cactus and drug, Alexander S. Dawson offers a completely new way of understanding the place of peyote in history. In this provocative new book, Dawson argues that peyote has marked the boundary between the Indian and the West since the Spanish Inquisition outlawed it in 1620. For nearly four centuries ecclesiastical, legal, scientific, and scholarly authorities have tried (unsuccessfully) to police that boundary to ensure that, while indigenous subjects might consume peyote, others could not. Moving back and forth across the U.S.–Mexico border,  The Peyote Effect  explores how battles over who might enjoy a right to consume peyote have unfolded in both countries, and how these conflicts have produced the racially exclusionary systems that characterizes modern drug regimes. Through this approach we see a surprising history of the racial thinking that binds these two countries more closely than we might otherwise imagine. “An eminently readable history of indigeneity and whiteness through the lens of a drug. . . . Provides a rich history of the interplay between hallucinogens and the politics of identity.” ― CHOICE Published On: 2019-03-01 “Dawson’s book departs from traditional peyote literature through outstanding coverage of the non-Indian organizations.” -- Benjamin R. Kracht ― Reading Religion Published On: 2019-03-11 "Deeply researched and conceptually rich, The Peyote Effect makes an important contribution to the history of drugs, history of race, history of medicine, Native American and Indigenous studies, borderlands history, and the history of the U.S. and Mexico." ― Western Historical Quarterly "Alexander Dawson has produced a stellar piece ofcomparative scholarship on the history of peyote and its uses in both Mexico and the United States." ― Hispanic American Historical Review "Alexander S. Dawson follows the history of the 'most purely intellectual' of drugs across centuries and borders and also challenges our conceptions of authenticity and cultural appropriation. He shows how the study, consumption, and spiritual meanings of peyote have been central to the constructions of indigeneity and racial difference in both Mexico and the United States. This empirically rich book will challenge readers to think critically about connections and divergences in the history of Mexico and the United States."—Pablo Piccato, Columbia University " The Peyote Effect is 'drug history' at its best in that it not only tells the story of a particular drug, but in doing so it makes an enormous contribution to our knowledge in other areas. The story Dawson tells—a comparative history of peyote in the United States and Mexico—is ultimately a history of modern orientalism and how Indians continue to play a primary role in defining what being 'American' or 'Mexican' cannot be. This is in many ways a quite brilliant book."—Isaac Peter Campos, author of Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico's War on Drugs "Alexander S. Dawson follows the history of the 'most purely intellectual' of drugs across centuries and borders and also challenges our conceptions of authenticity and cultural appropriation. He shows how the study, consumption, and spiritual meanings of peyote have been central to the constructions of indigeneity and racial difference in both Mexico and the United States. This empirically rich book will challenge readers to think critically about connections and divergences in the history of Mexico and the United States."—Pablo Piccato, Columbia University " The Peyote Effect is 'drug history' at its best in that it not only tells the story of a particular drug, but in doing so it makes an enormous contribution to our knowledge in other areas. The story Dawson tells—a comparative history of peyote in the United States and Mexico—is ultimately a history of modern orientalism and how Indians continue to play a primary role in defining what being 'American' or 'Mexican' cannot be. This is in many ways a quite brilliant book."—Isaac Peter Campos, author of Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico's War on Drugs Alexander S. Dawson  is Associate Professor of History at SUNY Albany. He is the author of  Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico ,  First World Dreams: Mexico Since 1989 , and  Latin America since Independence . The Peyote Effect From the Inquisition to the War on Drugs By Alexander S. Dawson UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Copyright © 2018 The Regents of the University of California All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-520-28542-2 Contents Acknowledgments, Introduction 1833: The Cholera Epidemic, Chapter One 1887: Dr. John Briggs Eats Some Peyote, Chapter Two 1899: The Instituto Médico Nacional, Chapter Three 1909: Poison, Chapter Four 1917: The Ban