This book examines how the profound religious, political, and intellectual shifts that characterize the early modern period in Europe are inextricably linked to cultural uses of alcohol in Europe and the Atlantic world. Combining recent work on the history of drink with innovative new research, the eight contributing scholars explore themes such as identity, consumerism, gender, politics, colonialism, religion, state-building, and more through the revealing lens of the pervasive drinking cultures of early modern peoples. Alcohol had a place at nearly every European table and a role in much of early modern experience, from building personal bonds via social and ritual drinking to fueling economies at both micro and macro levels. At the same time, drinking was also at the root of a host of personal tragedies, including domestic violence in the home and human trafficking across the Atlantic. Alcohol in the Early Modern World provides a fascinating re-examination of pre-modern beliefs about and experiences with intoxicating beverages.

This book examines how the profound religious, political, and intellectual shifts that characterize the early modern period in Europe are inextricably linked to cultural uses of alcohol in Europe and the Atlantic world. Combining recent work on the history of drink with innovative new research, the eight contributing scholars explore themes such as identity, consumerism, gender, politics, colonialism, religion, state-building, and more through the revealing lens of the pervasive drinking cultures of early modern peoples. Alcohol had a place at nearly every European table and a role in much of early modern experience, from building personal bonds via social and ritual drinking to fueling economies at both micro and macro levels. At the same time, drinking was also at the root of a host of personal tragedies, including domestic violence in the home and human trafficking across the Atlantic. Alcohol in the Early Modern World provides a fascinating re-examination of pre-modern beliefs about and experiences with intoxicating beverages.

Lining the streets inside the city's gates, clustered in its center, and thinly scattered among its back quarters were Augsburg's taverns and drinking rooms. These institutions ranged from the poorly lit rooms of backstreet wine sellers to the elaborate marble halls frequented by society's most privileged members. Urban drinking rooms provided more than food, drink, and lodging for their guests. They also conferred upon their visitors a sense of social identity commensurate with their status. Like all German cities, Augsburg during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had a history shaped by the political events attending the Reformation, the post-Reformation, and the Thirty Years' War; its social and political character was also reflected and supported by its public and private drinking rooms. In Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany, Ann Tlusty examines the social and cultural functions served by drinking and tavern life in Germany between 1500 and 1700, and challenges existing theories about urban identity, sociability, and power. Through her reconstruction of the social history of Augsburg, from beggars to council members, Tlusty also sheds light on such diverse topics as social ritual, gender and household relations, medical practice, and the concerns of civic leaders with public health and poverty. Drunkenness, dueling, and other forms of tavern comportment that may appear "disorderly" to us today turn out to be the inevitable, even desirable result of a society functioning according to its own rules.

From the origins of drinking to the use and abuse of alcohol in the present day, this global historical study draws on approaches and research from biology, anthropology, sociology and psychology. Topics covered include: the impact of colonialism alcohol before the world economy industrialization and alcohol globalization, consumer society, and alcohol. Gina Hames argues that the production, trade, consumption, and regulation of alcohol have shaped virtually every civilization in numerous ways. It has perpetuated the development of both domestic and international trade; helped create identity and define religion; provided a tool for oppression as well as a tool for cultural and political resistance; and has supplied governments with essential revenues as well as a means of control over minority groups. Alcohol in World History is one of the first studies to pull together such a wide range of sources in order to compare the role of alcohol throughout time and across both western and non-western civilizations.

This book examines drinking and attitudes to alcohol consumption in late medieval and early modern England, France, and Italy, especially as they related to sexual and violent behavior and to gender relations. According to widespread beliefs, the consumption of alcohol led to increased sexual activity among both men and women, and it also led to disorderly conduct among women and violent conduct among men. Dr Lynn shows how alcohol was a fundamental part of the diets of most people, including women, resulting in daily drinking of large amounts of ale, beer, or wine. This study offers an intimate insight into both the altered states induced by alcohol, and, by opposition, into normal relations in family, community, and society.

"In this innovative book on the attitudes toward and consumption of alcohol, Rod Phillips surveys a 9,000-year cultural and economic history, uncovering the tensions between alcoholic drinks as healthy staples of daily diets and as objects of social, political, and religious anxiety. In the urban centers of Europe and America, where it was seen as healthier than untreated water, alcohol gained a foothold as the drink of choice, but it has been regulated by governmental and religious authorities more than any other commodity. As a potential source of social disruption, alcohol created volatile boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable consumption and broke through barriers of class, race, and gender. Phillips follows the ever-changing cultural meanings of these potent potables and makes the surprising argument that some societies have entered "post-alcohol" phases."--Jacket.

Traditional Europe had high levels of violence and of alcohol consumption, both higher than they are in modern Western societies, where studies demonstrate a link between violence and alcohol. A. Lynn Martin uses an anthropological approach to examine drinking, drinking establishments, violence, and disorder, and compares the wine-producing south with the beer-drinking north and Catholic France and Italy with Protestant England, and explores whether alcohol consumption can also explain the violence and disorder of traditional Europe. Both Catholic and Protestant moralists believed in the link, and they condemned drunkenness and drinking establishments for causing violence and disorder. They did not advocate complete abstinence, however, for alcoholic beverages had an important role in most people's diets. Less appreciated by the moralists was alcohol's function as the ubiquitous social lubricant and the increasing importance of alehouses and taverns as centers of popular recreation. The study utilizes both quantitative and qualitative evidence from a wide variety of sources to question the beliefs of the moralists and the assumptions of modern scholars about the role of alcohol and drinking establishments in causing violence and disorder. It ends by analyzing the often-conflicting regulations of local, regional, and national governments that attempted to ensure that their citizens had a reliable supply of good drink at a reasonable cost but also to control who drank what, where, when, and how. No other comparable book examines the relationship of alcohol to violence and disorder during this period.