The potent emerald-green blend of wormwood, green anise and fennel, known as “the Green Fairy,” was once celebrated by the French society, including artists from Baudelaire to Van Gogh. By the early 1900s, France consumed more absinthe than the rest of the world put together. Yet within decades, it was banned and deemed a “national poison.”
What happened? Our analysis (recently published in Organization Studies of historical archives, newspapers, medical publications, and propaganda materials spanning 1870 to 1915, reveals a systematic scapegoating process which unfolds throughout three escalating cycles.
