A New View into History | A History of the World in 6 Glasses

History The Way It Should Be | A History of the World in 6 Glasses | Tom Standage

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	• A History of the World in 6 Glasses Tom Standage Atlantic Books, 2007 - 312 pages average customer review:based on 49 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Delicious history...

The title of this book might make you think this is just about the history of some beverages.

Yes you learn how beer came about, wine, etc. But what makes this book most fascinating is how it connects everything with society both past and present. Each section is entertaining and goes on some relevant tangents giving some insightful tidbits about things such as the Industrial Revolution, the Greek way of life and how coffee fueled important ideas and revolutions. Some portions are very funny and entertaining while some parts are very serious and might give some some readers a different take on how their beverage consumption might affect someone a thousand miles away.

Bottom line: this is a fascinating book that really makes you think a little differently each time you fill whatever cup, mug or glass you've got in your hand.

[AND OF COURSE ...what better way to relive history than to drink the appropriate beverage along with their corresponding chapter(s)?]

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A New View into History

What can you say except, "I'll drink to that."

As I first started looking at this book I was reminded of James Burke and his 'Connections.' Like Burke, Mr. Standage looks at the six (well maybe seven) drinks that basically were a technology that changed history.

To illustrate this I'll talk about only one of his drinks -- Beer. Beer probably began as some leftover cooked grain, perhaps the kids morning cereal, was left outside in the rain. Soaking in water, it turned into malt. Wild yeast fell into the mix, and in a few days the result was beer. While I'd bet it was foul tasting beer, it was the only alcoholic beverage around.

OK, so you have beer, how does this mean anything? Well, to get more beer, you need more grain. To get more grain you basically move from being a hunter-gatherer to a farmer. You also need the ancillary technologies of pottery to make and store the product. If you have beer, and your neighbors have food, perhaps you can make a trade. Expand on this and you have a need for writing, for record keeping, for accounting. And with accounting can the tax people be far behind? And that's not all. No pathogen lives through the brewing process, so all of a sudden you have a beverage that's safe to drink, cutting down on illnesses. Think about all that the next time you sip a brew.

Surprisingly, a lot of the glasses Mr. Standage talks about have this same factor of sterilizing the water, thereby cutting down on disease.

A delightful book, now if we can only get it made into a TV series.

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History The Way It Should Be

This is a good example of why history is fun. Tom Standage has investigated the origins of six beverages: beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola and has found innumerable connections, interconnections, and insights into not only the histories of the drinks themselves but also their impacts on the larger human story. The links Standage finds, for example between coffee and the Enlightenment or tea and the Opium Wars or wine and beer and their effect on class and cultural tensions in Greece and Rome, just a few of the many insights you'll find in the book) are fascinating. Standage also provides one of the most succinct but thorough dissections of the globalization debate I have ever seen in his coverage of "Coca-Colonization."

A History of the World in Six Glasses is much more than just a history of six beverages. It is history as it should be written (and taught).

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History of the world in six glasses

The premise of the book is very interesting, however, the actual execution and writing has been dumbed down. Although the history of the origin of each beverage is well done, the beverages effect on history is not very convincing from an historical point of view. I would have hoped for more depth rather than the superficial treatment given in this book.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, page 10

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