Drink is History
A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage is one of those books that holds your interest from beginning to end. Standage is a master of entertaining history writing. It is a style of writing that is airy, upbeat and lacks the heavy fact-laden verbosity of more academic works of history. Similar to another great book of his,The Victorian Internet,Standage takes us on a sweeping aerial tour of the high points of the topic at hand.
Standage traces the history shaping powers of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and soda as they shape various periods. So influential were these drinks, that it makes me think about how they continue to shape the world we live in.
Six Glasses left me in awe at the sheer power of liquids in history. There is really nothing more basic or essential than drink. Would the Enlightenment have been as profound or even occured without coffee? Would the Mediterranean lifestyle and much touted diet be what they are without wine? What sort of culture do we create with minds fueled by large doses of sugar delivered by soda? It makes me philosophize about notions of free will and control: chicken and egg sort of stuff. Is it we who control the drinks or the drinks that control us?
Standage traces the history shaping powers of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and soda as they shape various periods. So influential were these drinks, that it makes me think about how they continue to shape the world we live in.
Six Glasses left me in awe at the sheer power of liquids in history. There is really nothing more basic or essential than drink. Would the Enlightenment have been as profound or even occured without coffee? Would the Mediterranean lifestyle and much touted diet be what they are without wine? What sort of culture do we create with minds fueled by large doses of sugar delivered by soda? It makes me philosophize about notions of free will and control: chicken and egg sort of stuff. Is it we who control the drinks or the drinks that control us?
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