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.