Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History
✍️ Holt, Mack PA scholarly collection tracing the social history of drinking in the West from the Middle Ages to 2000.
This book investigates the cultural functions of alcoholic beverages rather than their production methods. It uses case studies from specific time periods and locations to show how drink influenced politics, health perceptions, and social class. The essays cover topics like the Reformation's effect on European drinking habits, the emergence of a proletarian public sphere in France, and the continuity of American saloon culture. By examining sources such as an English mercer's apprentice diary and medical literature from Italy, the text reveals how attitudes toward alcohol shifted over time. It highlights the tension between revenue generation and revelry in Russia and the construction of disease narratives in liberal Italy. The work demonstrates that drinking practices were deeply connected to broader societal changes, including religious shifts, political revolutions, and urban development across multiple continents.
The book covers Western societies from the late Middle Ages to 2000. It examines specific periods including sixteenth-century Italy, seventeenth-century England and Scotland, eighteenth-century Connecticut and France, nineteenth-century Russia and Australia, and twentieth-century America.
📝 Description: Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History
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Reader rating
This collection offers a rigorous academic look at how drinking shaped Western society, using specific case studies to trace shifts in politics and class. It excels in connecting religious changes and urban development to beverage habits across multiple continents. However, it lacks practical recipes or mixing instructions. Readers seeking cocktail guides or production techniques will find this text dry and irrelevant. It is strictly for those analyzing the cultural impact of alcohol rather than its culinary application.
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📖 Who should read this
Readers interested in the historical and cultural dimensions of alcohol consumption rather than practical mixing guides. Ideal for students of social history, historians examining class dynamics, or anyone seeking to understand how drinking habits shaped politics and health perceptions across different eras.
