Alcohol: A History

by Phillips

Whether as wine, beer, or spirits, alcohol has had a constant and often controversial role in social life. In his 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. His is the first book to examine and explain the meanings and effects of alcohol in such depth, from global and long-term perspectives.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Alcohol

380 pages, Paperback

First published October 13, 2014

About the author

About the Author
The author was born and raised in Hope Arkansas. He ventured far and wide in the US and other parts of the globe. He is still rooted in the southern soil and still influenced by the ever working, ever worshoping adults of his youth --the heroes, the unbroken spirits of this book.

Reviews

[Bear · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 3/4 of this book were very fascinating and the sort of scholarly diction didn't bother me at all. I learned a lot of interesting tidbits like Jesus was originally a wine god of sorts. And I am now obsessed with the Middle Ages and the women and Alewives dominating the brewing scene in that period.

The last forth was a little bit of a slog in part because of the authors style but more so because history as it is want to do repeats itself. So you more or less get the same story of man's relationship to alcohol as you did in the previous 600 plus years. Also I am slightly disappointing at lack of information regarding the relationship many Asian countries had with alcohol over the course of the history explored here, especially sake. Africa is largely ignored as well as is South America except in terms of the west's dealing with these areas. But I can't deny it gave some very illuminating ideas on the subject.

For example in the wine world today there is a preference towards young and drinkable wines and sweeter as opposed to wines you store and let ripen. This trend is merely going back to the very early years of wine in Europe where anything over 3 months old was thought rancid and undrinkable. It was in the late 19th and 29th centuries that wine especially French Wine became the gold standard and you were meant to by it and drink 5, 10, or 20 years later.

I would say it is certainly worth reading for anyone interested in alcohols history over the ages but would benefit to from further reading of other books on the subject to complete the larger narrative. But for the casual foodie or food historian it may be a bit of a "chore" to get through towards the end. And I would've enjoyed more history and context on the actual alcohol production even though this book wasn't really about that.

[Travis Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three themes that drip on ya, the booze universals constant through time:
1. Blessing or curse, danger or joy? In small servings it’s one, but in excess the levy breaks. Though the ascetics have always held some sway—and often enough in religious spheres—moderation has been the most consistent answer, especially pre-19th century, before the advent of clean water sources mitigated reliance on alcohol as antiseptic.
2. On a related note, there’s always been—and may always be?—a back on forth on whether alcohol is actually beneficial to your health or just deleterious. Skunk drunk has never been healthy (or societally applauded), but in moderation? In earlier times, the supposed health benefits ranged from the observable to the downright mystical (as with most psychoactive substances, often more of the latter), while in modern times—as of the book’s publication—Phillips touts the commonplace medical opinion that alcohol (in moderation) protects against heart disease and certain cancers; in other words, a return to the pre-19th century view of alcohol as a health tonic. In these more recent months of 2024-2025 (10+ years after Phillips’s writing), it seems the tide may be turning again; with the surgeon general shining a spotlight on alcohol as the 3rd leading cause of cancer, other researchers have piled on, identifying the embattled drug as a carcinogen… Phillips didn’t write late enough to capture this turn, but he frames us to understand it.
3. With money to be made, alcohol’s here to stay. Good luck changing that.

[Kate]

I had Rod Phillips as a professor during my time at university. While I very much enjoyed this book during the course, there was some chapters we never got around to due to syllabus constraints and I always told myself I would go back and read them.

[Chubsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The thing with alcohol history is that you need fun stories and anecdotes to supplement the facts, otherwise it starts to read drier than the kind of history you're forced to learn at school. The beginning chapters were interesting, but the middle and end dragged on forever with endless statistics and details of peasant drinking habits. The prohibition section was also surprisingly brief, only touching on the topic in various countries, and lacked any of the hilarious and romantic stories often associated with the times.
Quite disappointing. Good thing I didn't actually buy the book.

[Kaelee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars as a neutral rating, leaning slightly towards ‘enjoyable’.

I read this as a textbook for a history class and was pleasantly surprised to find it was actually quite readable and wasn’t excessively dry in the way textbooks usually are. Interesting material and a nice little foray into a subject I hadn’t really considered that much.

[Sandra Oldfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a thorough, well researched book. It is so interesting and I especially liked Chapter 11 with the discussion of how alcohol showed the paternalism of colonialism. A great book--well done to the author

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

really interesting

[Nicholas Mercer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a masterwork. This book represents a mere fraction of what Phillips is capable of. History of Cats and History of Locks and Keys will eclipse this work, which already eclipses the entire historical corpus as we know it.

[Elizabeth Vilchis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an okay survey of alcohol traditions. Yet, he contradicted himself, pretty arrogantly in the beginning. He made a statement about how the Indigenous of North America had no alcohol tradition prior to European contact. Yet, he went on later in the book to go into detail about pulque use of thousands of years in Mexico. Either he 1) doesn't consider Mexico a part of North America or 2) his anglocentric lens provided an atmosphere of confusion in his writing. Either way, as a Professor of History, he shouldn't cover the societies of this side of the world with such a blanket consideration. It feels arrogant and excludes millions of people from his theory. It's just no considerate. However, most of his focus is on modern and early Europe and wine. So, maybe his years of specializing on those topics caused him to miss out so abysmally of these other topics. Mexico is part of North America, Rod. That anglocentric lens is detrimental to your research.

[David Lucander · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good enough read and pretty informative, but this is a bit scholarly (read: dry) for a crossover book with popular appeal. I'd like to see more about how Islamic societies went dry and the U.S. Prohibition section was a bit thin, but hey, I'm not the guy who wrote this book. Strengths are sections on Greece & Rome, ancient history, and how alcohol is linked to colonialism. Phillips takes a broad lens and seeks to write about alcohol on a global scale across more than a millennium, so there's a lot that gets left out or glossed over. Oh, and don't drink much while you're reading this because it's pretty technical writing and you'll miss a lot.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly readable, and useful, text on the cultural and material history of alcohol. Phillips uses an international and comparative frame here to good effect--something not usually done in histories of alcohol. I also greatly appreciated his focus on colonial and ethnic/racial histories around alcohol. Makes compelling argument against the idea that most earlier societies turned to alcohol because the water wasn't safe to drink (some did, but the assumption is far too widespread, he argues).

[Etienne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beaucoup d'informations, mais qui au final nous apprend bien peu. J'ignore à quoi je m'attendais, mais j'ai trouvé ce livre un peu lourd et très académiques par le style d'écriture, ce qui fait qu'on accroche difficilement. Le livre est bien construit, les chapitres sont bien définits, le tout est rempli de référence, mais je n'ai simplement pas trouvé la matière et le contenu que j'espèrais y trouver. Sans être mauvais, ce livre ne m'a simplement pas plu!

[Sean Geist · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very dry read, with is bad for a book about alcohol. Lots of statistics and not a lot of passion. I'm embarrassed to say I wasn't able to finish it.