The Alcoholic Republic

The Alcoholic Republic PDF Author: W.J. Rorabaugh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199766312
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Rorabaugh has written a well thought out and intriguing social history of Americas great alcoholic binge that occurred between 1790 and 1830, what he terms a key formative period in our history....A pioneering work that illuminates a part of our heritage that can no longer be neglected in future studies of Americas social fabric. A bold and frequently illuminating attempt to investigate the relationship of a single social custom to the central features of our historical experience....A book which always asks interesting questions and provides many provocative answers.

The Alcoholic Republic

The Alcoholic Republic PDF Author: W.J. Rorabaugh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199766312
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Rorabaugh has written a well thought out and intriguing social history of Americas great alcoholic binge that occurred between 1790 and 1830, what he terms a key formative period in our history....A pioneering work that illuminates a part of our heritage that can no longer be neglected in future studies of Americas social fabric. A bold and frequently illuminating attempt to investigate the relationship of a single social custom to the central features of our historical experience....A book which always asks interesting questions and provides many provocative answers.

Rum Maniacs

Rum Maniacs PDF Author: Matthew Warner Osborn
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022609992X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
"This important study explores the medicalization of alcohol abuse in the 19th century US” and its influence on American literature and popular culture (Choice). In Rum Maniacs, Matthew Warner Osborn examines the rise of pathological drinking as a subject of medical interest, social controversy, and lurid fascination in 19th century America. At the heart of that story is the disease that afflicted Edgar Allen Poe: delirium tremens. Poe’s alcohol addiction was so severe that it gave him hallucinations, such as his vivid recollection of standing in a prison cell, fearing for his life, as he watched men mutilate his mother’s body—an event that never happened. First described in 1813, delirium tremens and its characteristic hallucinations inspired sweeping changes in how the medical profession saw and treated the problems of alcohol abuse. Based on new theories of pathological anatomy, human physiology, and mental illness, the new diagnosis established the popular belief that habitual drinking could become a psychological and physiological disease. By midcentury, delirium tremens had inspired a wide range of popular theater, poetry, fiction, and illustration. This romantic fascination endured into the twentieth century, most notably in the classic Disney cartoon Dumbo, in which a pink pachyderm marching band haunts a drunken young elephant. Rum Maniacs reveals just how delirium tremens shaped the modern experience of alcohol addiction as a psychic struggle with inner demons.

Deadly Medicine

Deadly Medicine PDF Author: Peter C. Mancall
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150172844X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
"An important work of scholarship, with powerful, concise, and objective insights into the complicated history of alcohol use among Native American peoples. Impeccably researched, cogently argued and clearly written, Peter Mancall's book is both an eye-opener for the lay reader and an invaluable resource for the expert."— Michael Dorris, author of The Broken Cord: A Family's Ongoing Struggle with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Alcohol abuse has killed and impoverished American Indians since the seventeenth century, when European settlers began trading rum for furs. In the first book to probe the origins of this ongoing social crisis, Peter C. Mancall explores the liquor trade's devastating impact on the Indian communities of colonial America. Mancall recounts how English settlers quickly found a market for alcohol among the Indians, and traffic in rum became a prominent source of revenue for the British Empire. In spite of the colonists' growing awareness that some Indians abused alcohol and that drinking threatened the stability of countless Indian villages already decimated by European diseases, they expanded the liquor trade into virtually every Indian community from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. In response, Indians created one of the most important temperance movements in American history, a movement that was nevertheless unable to halt the lucrative commerce. The author follows the trail of rum from the West Indian producers to the colonial distributors and on to the Indian consumers in the eastern woodlands. To discover why Indians participated in the trade and why they experienced such a powerful desire for alcohol, he addresses current medical views on alcoholism and reexamines the colonial era as a time when Indians were forming new strategies for survival in a world that had been radically changed. Finally, Mancall compares Indian drinking in New France and New Spain with that in the British colonies. Forever shattering the stereotype of the drunken Indian, Mancall offers a powerful indictment of English participation in the liquor trade and a new awareness or the trade's tragic cost for the American Indians.

Drinking

Drinking PDF Author: Caroline Knapp
Publisher: Dial Press
ISBN: 044033408X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor," a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it. It was love at first sight. The beads of moisture on a chilled bottle. The way the glasses clinked and the conversation flowed. Then it became obsession. The way she hid her bottles behind her lover's refrigerator. The way she slipped from the dinner table to the bathroom, from work to the bar. And then, like so many love stories, it fell apart. Drinking is Caroline Kapp's harrowing chronicle of her twenty-year love affair with alcohol. Caroline had her first drink at fourteen. She drank through her yeras at an Ivy League college, and through an award-winning career as an editor and columnist. Publicly she was a dutiful daughter, a sophisticated professional. Privately she was drinking herself into oblivion. This startlingly honest memoir lays bare the secrecy, family myths, and destructive relationships that go hand in hand with drinking. And it is, above all, a love story for our times—full of passion and heartbreak, betrayal and desire—a triumph over the pain and deception that mark an alcoholic life. Praise for Drinking “Quietly moving . . . Caroline Knapp dazzles us with her heady description of alcohol's allure and its devastating hold.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Filled with hard-won wisdom . . . [a] perceptive and revealing book.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Eloquent . . . a remarkable exercise in self-discovery.”—The New York Times “Drinking not only describes triumph; it is one.”—Newsweek

The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited

The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited PDF Author: George E. Vaillant
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674044568
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 463

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Book Description
When The Natural History of Alcoholism was first published in 1983, it was acclaimed in the press as the single most important contribution to the literature on alcoholism since the first edition of Alcoholic Anonymous’s Big Book. George Vaillant took on the crucial questions of whether alcoholism is a symptom or a disease, whether it is progressive, whether alcoholics differ from others before the onset of their alcoholism, and whether alcoholics can safely drink. Based on an evaluation of more than 600 individuals followed for over forty years, Vaillant’s monumental study offered new and authoritative answers to all of these questions. In this updated version of his classic book, Vaillant returns to the same subjects with the perspective gained from fifteen years of further follow-up. Alcoholics who had been studied to age 50 in the earlier book have now reached age 65 and beyond, and Vaillant reassesses what we know about alcoholism in light of both their experiences and the many new studies of the disease by other researchers. The result is a sharper focus on the nature and course of this devastating disorder as well as a sounder foundation for the assessment of various treatments.

Prohibition

Prohibition PDF Author: W. J. Rorabaugh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190689935
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
Although Americans have always been a hard-drinking people, voters used the democratic process to ban alcohol from 1920 to 1933. This bizarre episode, which uniquely involved two constitutional amendments, has often been humorously recalled, frequently satirized, and usually condemned. Themore interesting questions, however, are how and why Prohibition came about, how Prohibition worked (and failed to work), and how Prohibition gave way to strict governmental regulation of alcohol. This book answers these questions, presenting a brief and elegant overview of the Prohibition era.During the 1920s alcohol prices rose, quality declined, and consumption dropped. Since beer was too bulky to hide and largely disappeared, drinkers swallowed mixed drinks made with moonshine or mediocre imported liquor. The all-male saloon gave way to the speakeasy, where men and women drank, ate,and danced to jazz.This book illustrates how public support for prohibition collapsed due to gangster violence and the need for local, state, and federal government alcohol revenue during the Great Depression. As public opinion turned against prohibition, Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised to repeal prohibition in1932. Legal, taxed beer came in April 1933, and the Twenty-first Amendment was ratified in December 1933. After 1933, state alcohol control boards adopted strong regulations, whose legacies continue to influence American drinking habits.With his unparalleled historical knowledge and expertise in American drinking patterns, W. J. Rorabaugh provides an elegant and accessible synthesis of one of the most important topics in US history, showing how a powerful socio-political movement can shift emphasis over time.

White Man's Wicked Water

White Man's Wicked Water PDF Author: William E. Unrau
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
"Unrau draws upon an impressive array of Indian petitions, official reports, court records, and treaties to show how the West was really won. This detailed chronicle offers abundant evidence that alcohol both encouraged white conquest and destroyed native Americans". -- W. J. Rorabaugh, author of The Alcoholic Republic. "An excellent analysis. Unrau explores and documents the problems associated with one of the darker sides of acculturation or accommodation". -- R. David Edmonds, author of The Shawnee Prophet.

Prohibition: A Very Short Introduction

Prohibition: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: W. J. Rorabaugh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190280123
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Americans have always been a hard-drinking people, but from 1920 to 1933 the country went dry. After decades of pressure from rural Protestants such as the hatchet-wielding Carry A. Nation and organizations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union and Anti-Saloon League, the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Bolstered by the Volstead Act, this amendment made Prohibition law: alcohol could no longer be produced, imported, transported, or sold. This bizarre episode is often humorously recalled, frequently satirized, and usually condemned. The more interesting questions, however, are how and why Prohibition came about, how Prohibition worked (and failed to work), and how Prohibition gave way to strict governmental regulation of alcohol. This book answers these questions, presenting a brief and elegant overview of the Prohibition era and its legacy. During the 1920s alcohol prices rose, quality declined, and consumption dropped. The black market thrived, filling the pockets of mobsters and bootleggers. Since beer was too bulky to hide and largely disappeared, drinkers sipped cocktails made with moonshine or poor-grade imported liquor. The all-male saloon gave way to the speakeasy, where together men and women drank, smoked, and danced to jazz. After the onset of the Great Depression, support for Prohibition collapsed because of the rise in gangster violence and the need for revenue at local, state, and federal levels. As public opinion turned, Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised to repeal Prohibition in 1932. The legalization of beer came in April 1933, followed by the Twenty-first Amendment's repeal of the Eighteenth that December. State alcohol control boards soon adopted strong regulations, and their legacies continue to influence American drinking habits. Soon after, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith founded Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). The alcohol problem had shifted from being a moral issue during the century to a social, cultural, and political one during the campaign for Prohibition, and finally, to a therapeutic one involving individuals. As drinking returned to pre-Prohibition levels, a Neo-Prohibition emerged, led by groups such as Mothers against Drunk Driving, and ultimately resulted in a higher legal drinking age and other legislative measures. With his unparalleled expertise regarding American drinking patterns, W. J. Rorabaugh provides an accessible synthesis of one of the most important topics in US history, a topic that remains relevant today amidst rising concerns over binge-drinking and alcohol culture on college campuses.

Alcohol

Alcohol PDF Author: Mack P. Holt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1847880959
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Why are we so ambivalent about alcohol? Are we torn between our love of a drink and the need to restrict, or even prohibit, alcohol? How did saloon culture arise in the United States? Why did wine become such a ubiquitous part of French culture? Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History examines these questions and many more as it considers how drink has evolved in its functions and uses from the late Middle Ages to the present day in the West. Alcohol has long played an important role in societies throughout history, and understanding its consumption can reveal a great deal about a culture. This book discusses a range of issues, including domestic versus recreational use, the history of alcoholism, and the relationship between alcohol and violence, religion, sexuality, and medicine. It looks at how certain forms of alcohol speak about class, gender and place.Drawing on examples from Europe, North America and Australia, this book provides an overview of the many roles alcohol has played over the past five centuries.

The Alcoholic Empire

The Alcoholic Empire PDF Author: Patricia Herlihy
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195160956
Category : Alcoholism
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Herlihy examines the prevalance of alcohol in Russian social, economic, religious & political life. She looks at how the state, church, military, doctors & the czar tried to battle the problem of over-consumption of alcohol in the imperial period.