Drinking in America

Drinking in America PDF Author: Susan Cheever
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 1455513865
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
In Drinking in America, bestselling author Susan Cheever chronicles our national love affair with liquor, taking a long, thoughtful look at the way alcohol has changed our nation's history. This is the often-overlooked story of how alcohol has shaped American events and the American character from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Seen through the lens of alcoholism, American history takes on a vibrancy and a tragedy missing from many earlier accounts. From the drunkenness of the Pilgrims to Prohibition hijinks, drinking has always been a cherished American custom: a way to celebrate and a way to grieve and a way to take the edge off. At many pivotal points in our history-the illegal Mayflower landing at Cape Cod, the enslavement of African Americans, the McCarthy witch hunts, and the Kennedy assassination, to name only a few-alcohol has acted as a catalyst. Some nations drink more than we do, some drink less, but no other nation has been the drunkest in the world as America was in the 1830s only to outlaw drinking entirely a hundred years later. Both a lively history and an unflinching cultural investigation, Drinking in America unveils the volatile ambivalence within one nation's tumultuous affair with alcohol.

Drinking in America

Drinking in America PDF Author: Susan Cheever
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 1455513865
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Drinking in America, bestselling author Susan Cheever chronicles our national love affair with liquor, taking a long, thoughtful look at the way alcohol has changed our nation's history. This is the often-overlooked story of how alcohol has shaped American events and the American character from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Seen through the lens of alcoholism, American history takes on a vibrancy and a tragedy missing from many earlier accounts. From the drunkenness of the Pilgrims to Prohibition hijinks, drinking has always been a cherished American custom: a way to celebrate and a way to grieve and a way to take the edge off. At many pivotal points in our history-the illegal Mayflower landing at Cape Cod, the enslavement of African Americans, the McCarthy witch hunts, and the Kennedy assassination, to name only a few-alcohol has acted as a catalyst. Some nations drink more than we do, some drink less, but no other nation has been the drunkest in the world as America was in the 1830s only to outlaw drinking entirely a hundred years later. Both a lively history and an unflinching cultural investigation, Drinking in America unveils the volatile ambivalence within one nation's tumultuous affair with alcohol.

The Secret History of Alcoholism

The Secret History of Alcoholism PDF Author: James Graham
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780788168628
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Based on over 20 years' prodigious research, Graham takes the reader on a compelling tour of human history and links alcohol addiction with the destructive behavior of a range of public figures, including tyrants, murderers, politicians and writers. Drawing on the case of famous characters such as Alexander the Great, Joseph Stalin, Joe McCarthy and Ernest Hemingway, this book presents a convincing assessment of how this disorder can adversely affect the behavior of powerful individuals with devastating consequences.

Vodka Politics

Vodka Politics PDF Author: Mark Lawrence Schrad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199389470
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
Russia is famous for its vodka, and its culture of extreme intoxication. But just as vodka is central to the lives of many Russians, it is also central to understanding Russian history and politics. In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a series of historical investigations stretching from Ivan the Terrible through Vladimir Putin, Vodka Politics presents the secret history of the Russian state itself-a history that is drenched in liquor. Scrutinizing (rather than dismissing) the role of alcohol in Russian politics yields a more nuanced understanding of Russian history itself: from palace intrigues under the tsars to the drunken antics of Soviet and post-Soviet leadership, vodka is there in abundance. Beyond vivid anecdotes, Schrad scours original documents and archival evidence to answer provocative historical questions. How have Russia's rulers used alcohol to solidify their autocratic rule? What role did alcohol play in tsarist coups? Was Nicholas II's ill-fated prohibition a catalyst for the Bolshevik Revolution? Could the Soviet Union have become a world power without liquor? How did vodka politics contribute to the collapse of both communism and public health in the 1990s? How can the Kremlin overcome vodka's hurdles to produce greater social well-being, prosperity, and democracy into the future? Viewing Russian history through the bottom of the vodka bottle helps us to understand why the "liquor question" remains important to Russian high politics even today-almost a century after the issue had been put to bed in most every other modern state. Indeed, recognizing and confronting vodka's devastating political legacies may be the greatest political challenge for this generation of Russia's leadership, as well as the next.

Drinking In America

Drinking In America PDF Author: Mark Edward Lender
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 002918570X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Newly revised and updated, this engaging narrative chronicles America’s delight in drink and its simultaneous fight against it for the past 350 years. From Plymouth Rock, 1621, to New York City, 1987, Mark Edward Lender and James Kirby Martin guide readers through the history of drinks and drinkers in America, including how popular reactions to this ubiquitous habit have mirror and helped shape national response to a number of moral and social issues. By 1800, the temperance movement was born, playing a central role in American politics for the next 100 years, equating abstinence with 100-proof Americanism. And today, the authors attest, a “neotemperance” movement seems to be emerging in response to heightened public awareness of the consequences of alcohol abuse.

Drink

Drink PDF Author: Iain Gately
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440631263
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
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 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 trade, and the failed experiment of national Prohibition. Finally, it provides a history of the world's most famous drinks-and the world's most famous drinkers. Packed with trivia and colorful characters, Drink amounts to an intoxicating history of the world.

The Spirits of America

The Spirits of America PDF Author: Eric Burns
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 9781592137695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
In The spirits of America, Burns relates that drinking was "the first national pastime," and shows how it shaped American politics and culture from the earliest colonial days. He details the transformation of alcohol from virtue to vice and back again and how it was thought of as both scourge and medicine. He tells us how "the great American thirst" developed over the centuries, and how reform movements and laws sprang up to combat it. Burns brings back to life such vivid characters as Carrie Nation and other crusaders against drink. He informs us that, in the final analysis, Prohibition, the culmination of the reformers' quest, had as much to do with politics and economics and geography as it did with spirituous beverage.

Her Best-Kept Secret

Her Best-Kept Secret PDF Author: Gabrielle Glaser
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439184402
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
For readers of Quit Like a Woman, this “engaging account of women and drink, [cites] fascinating studies about modern stressors…and evidence that some problem drinkers can learn moderation….Bound to stir controversy” (People). In Her Best-Kept Secret, journalist Gabrielle Glaser uncovers a hidden-in-plain-sight drinking epidemic. Using “investigative rigor and thoughtful analysis” (TheBoston Globe), Glaser is the first to document that American women are drinking more often than ever and in ever-larger quantities in this “substantial book, interested in hard facts and nuance rather than hand-wringing” (The New York Times Book Review). She shows that contrary to the impression offered on reality TV, young women alone aren’t driving these statistics—their moms and grandmothers are, too. But Glaser doesn’t wag a finger. Instead, in a funny and tender voice, Glaser looks at the roots of the problem, explores the strange history of women and alcohol in America, drills into the emerging and counterintuitive science about that relationship, and asks: Are women getting the help they need? Is it possible to return from beyond the sipping point and develop a healthy relationship with the bottle? Glaser reveals that, for many women, joining Alcoholics Anonymous is not the answer—it is part of the problem. She shows that as scientists and health professionals learn more about women’s particular reactions to alcohol, they are coming up with new and more effective approaches to excessive drinking. In that sense, Glaser offers modern solutions to a very modern problem.

Secret History of Alcoholism

Secret History of Alcoholism PDF Author: James Graham
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781843334224
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


With a Lot of Help from Our Friends

With a Lot of Help from Our Friends PDF Author: Nancy M. Olson
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595270379
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 571

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Book Description
This book tells the inside story of government attempts to deal with the American alcohol problem from 1970 to 1980, the most important decade in the history of alcohol legislation since Prohibition, with the famous Hughes Act as its centerpiece. We meet the friends and supporters of Harold Hughes, the charismatic senator and former governor from Iowa, and Marty Mann, the beloved "first lady of Alcoholics Anonymous."The author, herself a major participant in these events, describes the struggles and triumphs of this small band of recovered alcoholics and their friends as they bared their souls before congressional hearings and succeeded in convincing a Congress and three reluctant Presidents to support this effort.Nancy Olson offers us a unique behind-the-scenes view of the alcoholism legislation that changed America during the 1970s. Both those interested in alcoholism and those intrigued by the legislative process will find this book fascinating. Well-documented and clearly written, this book tells a story that has long needed telling. Ernest Kurtz, author of Not-God: A History of Alcoholics AnonymousWritten in an engaging style, the book includes vivid accounts of incidents and exchanges, with a cast list including members of Congress and their staffs, federal administrators, scientists, and representatives of the alcoholism movement and of the alcohol industries. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the modern development of thinking and action about alcoholism and alcohol issues in the U.S. Robin Room, Professor and Director of the Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs, Stockholm University, Sweden

Drinking Boston

Drinking Boston PDF Author: Stephanie Schorow
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493050907
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
From the revolutionary camaraderie of the Colonial taverns to the saloons of the turn of the century; from Prohibition—a period rife with class politics, social reform, and opportunism—to a trail of nightclub neon so vast, it was called the “Conga Belt,” Drinking Boston is a tribute to the fascinating role alcohol has played throughout the city's history.