A History of the World in 6 Glasses

Christmas, for graduate students, is a time of paritcular delight. During this period there is not only a break in the action (read a break in the forcible reading of texts necessary to graduate) and the ever-lingering chance that books will be given as gifts. Note that I don't just mean books on the subjects we read about every single bloody day (its more repetitive than you'd ever imagine), but furthermore books that are 1) fictional or 2) interesting. For Christmas I received a book of the latter catagory entitled A History of the World in 6 Glasses. It is by a fellow named Tom Standage (who apparently is a frequent contributor to The Economist, which is one of the best publications on earth) and, as intended, it is a history of the world as seen from the perspective of beverages, specifically beer, wine, liquor (particularly whiskey and rum), coffee, tea, and soda (particuarly Coca-Cola). I have a few things to say:

1) This book is part of the newest trend in popular history writing, specifically the concentration on either a particular date (e.g. 1421) or a particular consumer good (e.g. Salt). Some of these are really good, some are really spotty in terms of historical accuracy, and some of them are flat boring (I know I'm the only intellectual who has read Salt and didn't like it, but damn, its salt. . . like, salt. C'mon.). This work, however, while written for popular consumption, is a great piece. Interesting (I couldn't put it down, reading to 4AM on three consecutive nights), smart, funny, and really, really informative. If you're a foodie, in particular, you should check this one out.

2) This book is academically interesting to me as well - the author makes it a point to explode our belief that globalization is a new process, noting that beverages are near universals and that four of the six beverages discussed are the direct of process of global economic and intellectual connectsions, connections dating back to the Western Middle Ages.

3) Things to read it for otherwise: the discussion of the Greek symposion (56), the invention of spirits in the Islamic world, its adoption by the Western world, and the ultimate development of uisge beatha, the "water of life" in the Scottish and Irish countrysides (93-111), the repeative efforts of social conservatives to restrict access to all new innovations in the field of beverages (the whole book), The United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola (244), and the role of caffiene in facilitating modernity and development (the latter-half of the book).

Read it. You'll like it. Dig.