Spirits Of America
A Social History Of Alcohol
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Temple University Press,U.S.
Published:5th Sep '03
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£24.99(9781592132690)
A history of "the great American thirst"
Presents an account of alcohol's journey through world and, more important, American history. This work relates that drinking was 'the first national pastime', and shows how it shaped American politics and culture from the earliest colonial days.\u0022Thousands of years ago, before Christ or Buddha or Muhammad...before the Roman Empire rose or the Colossus of Rhodes fell,\u0022 Eric Burns writes, \u0022people in Asia Minor were drinking beer.\u0022 So begins an account as entertaining as it is extensive, of alcohol's journey through world-and, more important, American-history. In The Spirits of America, Burns relates that drinking was \u0022the first national pastime,\u0022 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, how it was thought of as both scourge and medicine. He tells us how \u0022the great American thirst\u0022 developed over the centuries, and how reform movements and laws (some of which, Burn s says, were \u0022comic masterpieces of the legislator's art\u0022) 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. Filled with the famous, the infamous, and the undeservedly anonymous, The Spirits of America is a masterpiece of the historian's art. It will stand as a classic chronicle-witty, perceptive, and comprehensive-of how this country was created by and continues to be shaped by its everchanging relationship to the cocktail shaker and the keg.
"Eric Burns' book is as lively and engaging as a tailgate party on a Saturday afternoon, yet as sobering as a car wreck and a diagnosis of addiction. Burns connects America's thirst for drink to some of the most important social movements in the country's history: abolition and suffragism, organized labor, Progressivism, and, of course, temperance and Prohibition. Reading this epic of desire and destruction is to see our story magnified through the bottom of a bottle. It's history by the shot glass."-Bill Moyers "Eric Burns has written a marvelous history on the suprising role Alcohol has played in the making of our Republic. Brilliantly researched with elegantly interwoven anecdotes, Spirits of America makes for riveting reading. A truly important book."-Douglas Brinkley, Director of The Eisenhower Center for American Studies and Professor of History at the University of New Orleans "Burns, a self-described "non-academic historian" and host of Fox News Watch, takes readers on a romp with boozers and teetotalers in this high-spirited history of alcohol in America. ...Best of all are his lively portraits of mostly-forgotten historical figures, such as Diocletian Lewis, who, with his mother Delecta, formed the Visitation Bands, which gathered outside barrooms 'communicating their displeasure to the heavens.' ...readers who like informative fun need not be so straight-laced-there are plenty of solid facts here and the Emmy-winning author clearly knows how to spin a good yarn."-Publishers Weekly "By turns humorous and sobering, the book is filled with interesting facts and trivia (apparently bottles of cider were sometimes shared between spectators and trial participants in colonial American courtrooms), and Bums' engaging writing style makes the book a delight to read."-History Magazine "His prose is engaging and relaxed, written in the rhythms of an accomplished raconteur rather than the jargon of the academic. In short, [The Spirits of America] is about as dry as a colonial tavern."-Andrew Stuttaford, National Review "This is that rare vintage of a book: both a fascinating read and a reliable historical reference. Burns delivers a beauty."-G.E. Murray, St. Louis Post-Dispatch "...thoroughly enjoyable... [Burns] is at his best when he is dropping bits of trivia into longer tales."-The Weekly Standard "If Big Shots is the literary equivalent of an umbrella drink, Eric Burns's social history is like a straight whisky...informative and lively. Of course, with characters like Carry Nation floating about, who christened her approach to temperance "hatchetation"-her favorite tool to take to bars being a hatchet-liveliness would be hard to miss. ...Burns's book is a must for anyone with an interest in the long, ambivalent relationship America has had with distilled spirits."-Wine & Spirits
ISBN: 9781592132140
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 28mm
Weight: unknown
376 pages