A History of the World in 6 Glasses

A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Tom Standage

This was a really fun little history book that shows the development of human history through six beverages: beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola. For a history book it really keeps the pages turning and would be a good read for just about anyone. It's not so lofty that only history nerds would like and understand it; but, it isn't so simple that those same nerds would turn their nose up at it.

Here are just some of my highlights from the book.

"To Neolithic drinkers, beer's ability to intoxicate and induce a state of altered consciousness seemed magical" (Standage, 19). - The obvious inference here is that beer is a gift from the gods, which played a central role in many ancient peoples' religions.

An interesting Egyptian myth that would be worth further study and possibly a short story:

"The Egyptians, for example, believed that beer was accidentally discovered by Osiris, the god of agriculture and king of the afterlife. One day he prepared a mixture of water and sprouted grain, but forgot about it and left it in the sun. He later returned to find the gruel had fermented, decided to drink it, and was so pleased with the result that he passed his knowledge on to humankind. (This tale seems to tally closely with the way beer was probably discovered in the stone age)." (Standage, 19).

It is better to be a beer drinker than a non-beer drinker.

"In other words, beer helped to make up for the decline in food quality as people took up farming, provided a safe form of liquid nourishment, and gave groups of beer-drinking farmers a comparative advantage over non-beer drinkers" (Standage, 22).

Philosophy of Religion and History of Religion: An interesting theory on how temples emerged to play a role in society:

"Keeping surplus food in the storehouse was one way to ward off future food shortages; ritual and religious activity, in which the gods were called upon to ensure a good harvest, was another. As these two activities became intertwined, deposits of surplus food came to be seen as offerings to the gods, and the storehouses became temples." (Standage, 22).

"The Mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer.
-Egyptian Proverb, c. 2200 BC."(Standage, 23)

The very definition of civilization is beer.

"The Mesopotamians regarded the consumption of bread and beer as one of the things that distinguished them from savages and made them fully human. Interestingly, this belief seems to echo beer's association with a settled, orderly lifestyle, rather than the haphazard existence of hunter-gatherers in prehistoric times" (Standage, 27).

Another Egyptian Myth worth retelling in short story form:

"One Egyptian tale even credits beer with saving humankind from destruction. Ra, the sun god, learned that humankind was plotting against him, and dispatched the goddess Hathor to exact punishment. But such was her ferocity that Ra feared there would soon be nobody left to worship him, and he took pity on humankind. He prepared a vast amount of beer - seven thousand jars of it, in some versions of the story - dyed it red to resemble blood, and spread it over the fields, where it shone like a vast mirror. Hathor paused to admire her reflection and then stooped to drink some of the mixture. She became intoxicated, fell asleep, and forgot about her bloody mission. Humankind was saved, and Hathor became the goddess of beer and brewing. Versions of this story have been found inscribed of Egyptian kings, including Tutankhamen, Seti I, and Ramses the Great" (Standage, 28-29).

"Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever"
-Aristophanes, Greek comic poet (c. 450-385 BCE)." (Standage, 43).

Plato's wine experiment and "fear drink" to test someone's character:

"Wine could be used in everyday life to reveal truth: It could expose the true nature of those drinking it. While he objected to the hedonistic reality of actual symposia, Plato saw no reason why the practice could not, in theory, be put to good use as a test of personality. Speaking through one of the characters in his book Laws, Plato argues that drinking with someone at a symposium is in fact the simplest, fastest, and most reliable test of someone's character" (Standage, 63-64).

"Baths, wine and sex ruin our bodies. But what makes life worth living except baths, wine and sex?
-Corpus Inscriptions VI, 15258" (Standage, 69).

Another short story that would be worth writing - This might be good as a story of disembodied heads relating their final moments on earth at a party in the afterlife:

"It is not often that choosing one wine over another is a matter of life or death. Yet that is what determined the fate of Marcus Antonius, a Roman politician and a renowned orator. In 87 BCE, he found himself on the wrong side of one of Rome's many interminable power struggles. Gains Marius, an elderly general, had seized power and was ruthlessly hunting down supporters of his rival, Sulla. Marcus Antonius sought refuge in the house of an associate of far lower social status, hoping that nobody would think of looking for him in such a poor man's house. His host, however, unwittingly gave him away by sending his servant out to buy wine worthy of such a distinguished guest. The servant went to the neighborhood wine shop and, after tasting what was on offer, asked for a far better and more expensive wine than usual. When the vintner asked why, the servant revealed the identity of his master's guest. The vintner went straight to Marius, who dispatched a handful of soldiers to kill Marcus Antonius. Yet having burst into his room, the soldiers could not bring themselves to kill him, such was the power of his oratory. Eventually, their commanding officer, who was waiting outside, went in to see what was happening. Denouncing his men as cowards, he drew his sword and beheaded Marcus Antonius himself" (Standage, 75).

A funny account of early English settlers to the New World:

"In 1613 a Spanish observer reported that the three hundred colonists had nothing but water to drink, 'which is contrary to the nature of the English - on account of which they all wish to return and would have done so if they had been at liberty'" (Standage, 113-114).

The Early American Drink:

Rum starts out as the colonial and American drink, but it is supplanted by whiskey with even George Washington getting in on the game. Jefferson however laments this as both a statesman, and a wine aficionado - calling wine, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey. "No nation is drunken where wine is cheap, and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage" (Standage, 127).

A fascinating account of the origin of coffee

"One tells of an Ethiopian goatherd who noticed that is flock became particularly frisky after consuming the brownish purple cherries from a particular tree. He then tried eating them himself, noted their stimulating powers, and passed his discovery on to a local imam. The imam, in turn, devised a new way to prepare the berries, drying them and then boiling them in water to produce a hot drink, which he used to keep himself awake during overnight religious ceremonies. Another story tells of a man named Omar who was condemned to die of starvation in the desert outside Mocha, a city in Yemen, on the southwestern corner of the Arabian peninsula. A vision guided him to a coffee tree, whereupon he ate some of its berries. This gave him sufficient strength to return to Mocha, where his survival was taken as a sign that God had spared him in order to pass along to humankind knowledge of coffee, which then became a popular drink in Mocha" (Standage, 137).

Might be a funny short story:

Not everyone in the arabic world was thrilled with discovery of coffee. "Religious leaders invoked this rule in Mecca in June 1511, the earliest known of several attempts to ban the consumption of coffee. The local governor, a man named Kha'ir Beg, who was responsible for maintaining public morality, literally put coffee on trial. He convened a council of legal experts and placed the accused - a large vessel of coffee - before them. After discussion of its intoxicating effects, the council agreed with Kha'ir Beg that the sale and consumption of coffee should be prohibited... Within a few months, however, higher authorities in Cairo overturned Kha'ir Beg's ruling, and coffee was soon being openly consumed again. His authority undermined, Kha'ir Beg was replaced as governor the following year" (Standage, 138).

Another funny short story surrounding coffee, might be one reported in the Spectator (London paper) in 1712. 

"There was a fellow in town some years ago, who used to divert himself by telling a lye at Charing Cross in the morning at eight of the clock, and then following it through all parts of town until eight at night: at which time he came to a club of his friends, and diverted them with an account of what censure it had drawn at Will's in Covent Garden, how dangerous it was believed at Child's and what inference they drew from it with relation to stocks at Jonathon's" (Standage, 154).

This was a well-written and well-researched book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Philosophy of Religion - Hick: Ch. 1 (A)

(Originally written December 28, 2006 in Book 7)

Philosophy of Religion 3rd Edition
John H. Hick
Prentice-Hall Inc.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ
1983

Ch. 1 - The Judaic-Christian Concept of God

Monotheism

The ways of thinking about God are formed around the Greek word for God, theos. (Latin: deus)

Atheism - the belief that there is no god of any kind

Agnosticism - the belief system that we have neither grounds for affirming or denying the existence of God

Skepticism - merely doubting

Naturalism - everything about human life, including moral and religious aspects are explicable in non-supernatural terms.

Deism has two meanings:
1) The idea of an absentee god who set the universe into motion and then left it alone
2) An historical point of view that the 18th century English deist held

Theism - a belief in a deity (usually synonymous with monotheism)

Polytheism - a belief in many personal gods that govern a specific part of the world

Henotheism - a belief in many gods, but devotion to only one of them

Pantheism - a belief that God is identical with nature or with the world as a whole

Monotheism - a belief in one Supreme Being who is personal and moral

Monotheism was initially started by Judaism, despite a brief introduction of monotheistic worship of the Sun-god in 14th century B.C. in Egypt.

The Old Testament documents the rise of monotheism but does not resolve the struggle between polytheism and henotheism.

Yahweh began as a tribal god but persevered to become the only Supreme Being.

Good night book. Sweet Dreams.

Notes on The History of Western Philosophy

(Originally written June 30, 2006 in Book 2)

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
1974

Part I - The Pre-Socratics

Chapter 1 - The Rise of Greek Civilization

Prior to Greece, civilization existed in Egypt & Mesopotamia

Greece invented mathematics (deductive reasoning), science and philosophy. They were the first to write history.

They were "writing without being bound in the fetters of any inherited orthodoxy" (Russell, 3).

Linehan: is orthodoxy bad?

Philosophy began in Thales in 585 B.C. Philosophy and science were the same in the beginning.

Writing was invented in Egypt around 4,000 BC.

Civilization occurred in Egypt due to the Nile and in Mesopotamia because of the Tigris & the Euphrates. These rivers made agriculture easier.

Egypt saw a sovereign king who owned all then land and polytheism. This religion had a supreme god with a special relationship with the king. There was both a military aristocracy and a priestly aristocracy.

Egyptian theology focused on death, the afterlife and the eventual reunification of soul and body, hence the mummification. Egypt's culture was rendered stagnant because "religious conservatism made progress impossible".

Egyptian culture spread to Syria and Palestine via the Hyksos reign, circa 1800 BC - 1600 BC.

Babylonia was a more warlike civilization than Egypt.

Sumeria was the original rulers of Mesopotamia. Their origin is unknown. Sumeria invented cuneiform.

Semites then conquered the Sumerians and city-states and gods of those city-states developed religions.

Babylon then conquered the region and its supreme god, Marduk subverted all the other city-state gods.

Zeus of the Greek religion is similar to Marduk.

Ancient religions originated as fertility cults - female earth and male sun.

Bull-gods were symbols of male fertility.

Ishtar, the Babylonian earth-goddess was the supreme deity. Earth-goddesses developed all over the ancient world. Greece assimilated Ishtar as Artemis; Diana of the Ephesisans was Ephesus' Ishtar. The Virgin Mary is Christianity's Ishtar.

Gods became associated with fertility, then the state. Gods had to bring the harvest and victory in war. Through the association with the government, gods became associated with morality. Lawmakers received moral codes via the god. The Hammurabi code came to Hammurabi via Marduk.

Egypt's religion focused on happiness in the next world; whereas Babylonian religion was focused on prosperity in life.

Babylonian religion developed astrology, magic and divination more than other cultures.

Babylon invented (discovered) scientific data like 24-hour days, 360 degree circles and eclipse cycles.

Egypt, Mesopotamian and nearby cultures were agricultural. Commerce developed via maritime nations later on.

Crete seems to be the pioneer of commerce.

Minoan culture existed on Crete from 2500 BC -1400 BC. Minoan culture was very artistic and much more cheerful than the gloomy Egyptian art.

Crete worshipped goddesses, especially the huntress: the "Mistress of Animals", a source of the classical Artemis.

Cretans seemed to have believed in an afterlife based on the deeds of the earthly life, but were not oppressed by gloomy superstitions like the Egyptians.

Minoan culture seems to have been peaceful, as there were no walls on their cities, but undoubtedly possessed strong sea defenses.

It was destroyed by Greek invasions, but survived on mainland Greece in varying forms from 1600 BC - 900 BC. This Minoan culture on the mainland is called Mycenaean.

Mycenaean civilization is seen in Homer's works, though embellished as legend.

The Greeks came to Greece in three waves: Ionians, Achaeans, Dorians.

The Ionians seem to have assimilated the Mycenaean civilization into their own as Rome later did to the Greek.

The Achaeans seem to have had a strong civilization in the 14th century BC.

The Mycenaean civilization was weakened by wars with the Ionians and Achaeans and then obliterated by the Dorians.

While the Ionians and Achaeans adopted Mycenaean religion and culture, the Dorians retained their Indo-European religion. Lower classes kept the Mycenaean religion and eventually the two blended into the Classical Greek Religion.

The Dorian invaders settled in Greece and started agricultural cities in the fertile valleys. The mountainous terrain isolated the cities. Some invaders continued on into Asia Minor, Sicily, and southern Italy.

The social systems in Greek cities varied greatly due to the lack of communication on the mainland.

Sparta had a small aristocracy which enslaved a different race.

In commercial cities, free citizens grew rich by acquiring slaves, which were acquired in warfare.

Wealth brought the isolation of respectable women in Greece, except in Sparta.

Greece did not have absolute kings like Egypt and Babylon. They developed from monarchy to aristocracy to tyranny/democracy alternations.

Tyranny is power of one man in a non-hereditary succession.

Democracy was government by all people other than women and slaves.