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With the same ambitious sweep and needle-in-history's-haystack approach of his previous tome on tobacco, Gately takes on all things alcohol. From absinthe to Jay-Z's boycott of allegedly racist Cristal, from Mayan pulque to Pilsner Urquell, he covers the history and the culture of the medicinal and mind-altering product that since at least 8000 B.C. has been part of human civilization. The book's first chapters chronicle the history of fermentation and distillation from early civilization through the late Middle Ages, before the narrative's bulk gives over to alcohol's story since the colonization of the New World. Gately touches on such minutiae as the tableware and music selections onboard the expedition ships that followed Raleigh to America and an exacting chronology of laws enacted to ban the sale of alcohol to Indians. He ecumenically includes historical information from every civilized continent; yet for a book on booze, it's at first drier than straight gin, definitely for those who like their history neat. Like a good party, however, it becomes livelier as the author works in such far-flung cultural materials as the plays of Alfred Jarry and Budweiser's '80s mascot, Spuds McKenzie. In the end, Gately ranges so wide and deep that this may become a classic reference on the subject. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.For thousands of years, the world has both celebrated and cursed alcohol. In his latest breezily entertaining book, Gately, who has also written about another addictive substance in Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization, writes about both the beneficial and the detrimental effects alcohol has had on society while giving readers a concise, chronological history of alcohol throughout time and across the globe. Readers needing a basic overview of the general subject of alcohol should be satisfied with Gately's book, but researchers requiring a more detailed history about specific alcoholic beverages such as wine will need to find other books such as Thomas Pinney's A History of Wine in America or Roderick Phillips's A Short History of Wine to be more useful. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.
—John Charles
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
1 The Grain and the Grape 1
2 Bacchanal 11
3 In Vino Veritas 28
4 Wine, Blood, Salvation 41
5 Barbarians 50
6 Islam 65
7 Brews for Breakfast 76
8 A New World of Drinking 91
9 Watkin's Ale 105
10 Pilgrims 116
11 Restoration 131
12 Rum 142
13 Gin Fever 159
14 Progress 175
15 Revolution 187
16 Warra Warra 200
17 Whiskey with an e 215
18 Romantic Drinking 237
19 Apostles of Cold Water 253
20 West 268
21 The King of San Francisco 281
22 Good Taste 293
23 Emancipation 308
24 Imperial Preference 322
25 La Fée Verte 333
26 Hatchetation 344
27 In the Chalk Trenches of Champagne 359
28 Amphibians 369
29 Lost 385
30 Crime and Punishment 400
31 The Bottle 412
32 Reconstruction 423
33 Flashbacks 433
34 Westernization 443
35 Messages 453
36 Singletons, Wine Lakes, and the Moscow Express 467
37 Fiat Lux 482
Notes 499
Index 529
Anonymous
Posted March 26, 2012
An excellent book filled with interesting facts and explanations. Especially good for a history buff.
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Posted October 23, 2009
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Overview
A spirited look at the history of alcohol, from the dawn of civilization to the modern dayAlcohol is a fundamental part of Western culture. We have been drinking as long as we have been human, and for better or worse, alcohol has shaped our civilization. Drink investigates the history of this Jekyll and Hyde of fluids, tracing mankind's love/hate relationship with alcohol from ancient Egypt to the present day.
Drink further documents the contribution of alcohol to the birth and growth of the United States, taking in the War of Independence, the Pennsylvania Whiskey revolt, the slave...