Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol

by Iain Gately

Book Overview

A spirited look at the history of alcohol, from the dawn of civilization to the modern day Alcohol is a fundamental part of Western culture. We have been drinking as long as we have been human, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592404642
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Avery
• Length: 560 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.9" x 1.3" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Damn good book.

This is a well researched and engaging book. I carried it around with me while i was reading it, and had many conversations with people who noticed it. I would have liked more about microbreweries, but thats another book in itself i suppose.

Entertaing & Informative

If you drink, ever wonder why? How did humans figure out how to create alcohol? Why don't people enjoy drinking grape juice as much as wine? How did it become a social thing? All these questions, and many more, are pondered and answered in this informative and interesting book. A good sociological examination as to why people drink, how they drink, why they drink what they do and why it's been viewed favorably by some cultures in history and unfavorably by others. As someone who is always fascinated by learning how humans tick and how we've changed through history - I found this book both relaxing (a good non controversial read) and thought provoking.

From Sumeria to Napa Valley

Gately brings us a lively, humorous chronicle of the culture of booze from ancient Mesopotamia to our own day. The Dorothy Parker ditty on page 378 is alone worth the price of admission. Subtract a total of one star for the following editorial oversights: On page 44 we are told Pliny the Younger was a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius. On page 134 we are told Gabriel Metsu's Old Drinker is holding the pipe in his left hand and the tankard in his right. On page 145 we are told that the Carolina colonies made progress in the second half of the sixteenth century. On page 249 we are told that Saint Paul at his redemption was en route for Tarsus.

Not a review, but a question.....

Years ago, when I was actually studying to become an alcoholism counselor, I read something from long-ago America, during some sort of political election..... One of the politicians was asked what he thought about alcohol and he proceeded to give an oratory as only a politician could: He said something along the lines of "If you are speaking of the gentle liquid that soothes a man's throat and makes of him a poet....etc. then I am all for alcohol! But, if you are speaking of the devil's brew that turns a man into a wife-beater and irresponsible employee....etc. then I am against the use of alcohol!" Has anyone ever read the entire "sermon", and is it included in this book? I have been trying to find it for years.......

Classic

From ancient Greece to MADD (Mothers Against Drunken Driving) Gately hits a beat. From Jacob's Creek to San Francisco steam, from Louis Pasteur's 1862 discovery that yeast eats sugar and excretes alcohol to the "green fairy" absinthe and its eventual prohibition, from the drift away from spitoons to tubes at home and the staggering popularity of Cognac in Hong Kong and Kristal in Harlem - a cornucopia of wit and tasty notes - to your health!