Book Search #10: The History of Alcohol

Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol by Iain Gately  (Author)

 

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• • Paperback: 560 pages
  • Publisher: Gotham (May 5, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1592404642
  • ISBN-13: 978-1592404643

  •    From Booklist

• Following his earlier treatise on tobacco, historian Gately focuses on another of humanity’s consuming passions: alcoholic beverages. Beginning with classical civilizations, he traces the rise of vintner, brewer, and distiller, whose demand for fruits, grains, and new markets helped fuel the expansion of empires. Gately contrasts Christianity’s intimate embrace of the fruit of the vine with Islam’s absolute rejection of intoxicating libations. European explorers carted wines over oceans only to discover that New World civilizations had already concocted their own sophisticated and highly drinkable spirits. Rum became inextricably bound with slave trading, and mass production and undisciplined consumption of whiskey and gin threatened to unravel the social fabric of newly industrialized European and American economies. Governments adopted different strategies for dealing with alcohol abuse, ranging from regulation of the opening hours of public houses to outright prohibition. A grand, always engaging survey of the role of booze in both cultural and social history. --Mark Knoblauch --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Well written and entertaining

By M. Krueger on August 30, 2010

Format: Paperback

This book was very well written, and was a real pleasure to read. I like books like this that intertwine facts with historical anecdotes. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the cultural history of alcohol.

I think that alcohol would be a really cool thing to learn about, because it has been along for a very long time, and I would really
like to learn more about it, like how it is made, where the idea came from.