Drinking in America PDF Download

Author: Susan Cheever
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 1455513865
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
In DRINKING IN AMERICA, bestselling author Susan Cheever chronicles our national love affair with liquor, taking a long, thoughtful look at the way alcohol has changed our nation's history. This is the often-overlooked story of how alcohol has shaped American events and the American character from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Seen through the lens of alcoholism, American history takes on a vibrancy and a tragedy missing from many earlier accounts. From the drunkenness of the Pilgrims to Prohibition hijinks, drinking has always been a cherished American custom: a way to celebrate and a way to grieve and a way to take the edge off. At many pivotal points in our history-the illegal Mayflower landing at Cape Cod, the enslavement of African Americans, the McCarthy witch hunts, and the Kennedy assassination, to name only a few-alcohol has acted as a catalyst. Some nations drink more than we do, some drink less, but no other nation has been the drunkest in the world as America was in the 1830s only to outlaw drinking entirely a hundred years later. Both a lively history and an unflinching cultural investigation, DRINKING IN AMERICA unveils the volatile ambivalence within one nation's tumultuous affair with alcohol.

Author: United States Department of Transportation
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309034493
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Alcohol is a killerâ€"1 of every 13 deaths in the United States is alcohol-related. In addition, 5 percent of the population consumes 50 percent of the alcohol. The authors take a close look at the problem in a "classy little study," as The Washington Post called this book. The Library Journal states, "...[T]his is one book that addresses solutions....And it's enjoyably readable....This is an excellent review for anyone in the alcoholism prevention business, and good background reading for the interested layperson." The Washington Post agrees: the book "...likely will wind up on the bookshelves of counselors, politicians, judges, medical professionals, and law enforcement officials throughout the country."

Author: Eric Bogosian
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 9780573640483
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
These 12 monologues were originally performed in New York by the author. "Cleverly written [...] It sinks its teeth deep into American and gives us something to chew on." - New York Magazine

Author: Sharon V. Salinger
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801878992
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
American colonists knew just two types of public building: churches and taverns. At a time when drinking water was considered dangerous, everyone drank often and in quantity. The author explores the role of drinking and tavern sociability.

Author: Mark Edward Lender
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 002918570X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Newly revised and updated, this engaging narrative chronicles America’s delight in drink and its simultaneous fight against it for the past 350 years. From Plymouth Rock, 1621, to New York City, 1987, Mark Edward Lender and James Kirby Martin guide readers through the history of drinks and drinkers in America, including how popular reactions to this ubiquitous habit have mirror and helped shape national response to a number of moral and social issues. By 1800, the temperance movement was born, playing a central role in American politics for the next 100 years, equating abstinence with 100-proof Americanism. And today, the authors attest, a “neotemperance” movement seems to be emerging in response to heightened public awareness of the consequences of alcohol abuse.

Author: Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801870224
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title The period of prohibition, from 1919 to 1933, marks the fault line between the cultures of Victorian and modern America. In Domesticating Drink, Murdock argues that the debates surrounding alcohol also marked a divide along gender lines. For much of early American history, men generally did the drinking, and women and children were frequently the victims of alcohol-associated violence and abuse. As a result, women stood at the fore of the temperance and prohibition movements and, as Murdock explains, effectively used the fight against drunkenness as a route toward political empowerment and participation. At the same time, respectable women drank at home, in a pattern of moderation at odds with contemporaneous male alcohol abuse. During the 1920s, with federal prohibition a reality, many women began to assert their hard-won sense of freedom by becoming social drinkers in places other than the home. Murdock's study of how this development took place broadens our understanding of the social and cultural history of alcohol and the various issues that surround it. As alcohol continues to spark debate about behaviors, attitudes, and gender roles, Domesticating Drink provides valuable historical context and important lessons for understanding and responding to the evolving use, and abuse, of drink.

Author: Brian Bartels
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 168335835X
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
“[Bartels] takes us on a fascinating bar crawl across the country, explaining the history of America’s cocktail and drinking culture along the way.” —Wylie Dufresne, chef and owner of Du’s Donuts The United States of Cocktails is a celebration of the cocktail history of every state in America. After traveling this great nation and sampling many of the drinks on offer, cocktail authority Brian Bartels serves up a book that is equal parts recipe collection, travelogue, historical miscellany, bartender’s manual, and guide to bar culture today—with bar and drink recommendations that are sure to come in handy whether or not you are crossing state lines. Delving into the colorful stories behind the creation of drinks we love, this book includes more than 100 recipes alongside spirited analysis of each state’s unique contributions to cocktail culture. Filled with colorful illustrations, The United States of Cocktails is an opinionated and distinctively designed love letter to the spirits, bars, and people who have created and consumed the iconic drinks that inspire us and satisfy our thirst. “You could hardly ask for a more personable guide than Brian Bartels. He knows the oldest bars, the coolest bars, the can’t-miss bars and the oddest local quaffs in all 50 states, so you’ll never make the mistake of ordering a Whiskey Ditch in Louisiana or search for Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy on an Arizona back bar.” —Robert Simonson, author of The Old-Fashioned “Brian Bartels is a spirits traveler extraordinaire and this informative, highly-entertaining book is my new go-to guide for the most social of vices—drinkin’.” —Greg Mottola, director of Superbad, Adventureland, and The Newsroom

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309089352
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 761

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Book Description
Alcohol use by young people is extremely dangerous - both to themselves and society at large. Underage alcohol use is associated with traffic fatalities, violence, unsafe sex, suicide, educational failure, and other problem behaviors that diminish the prospects of future success, as well as health risks â€" and the earlier teens start drinking, the greater the danger. Despite these serious concerns, the media continues to make drinking look attractive to youth, and it remains possible and even easy for teenagers to get access to alcohol. Why is this dangerous behavior so pervasive? What can be done to prevent it? What will work and who is responsible for making sure it happens? Reducing Underage Drinking addresses these questions and proposes a new way to combat underage alcohol use. It explores the ways in which may different individuals and groups contribute to the problem and how they can be enlisted to prevent it. Reducing Underage Drinking will serve as both a game plan and a call to arms for anyone with an investment in youth health and safety.

Author: Susan Cheever
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439121893
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
In this thoroughly researched and groundbreaking biography of Bill Wilson, cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, acclaimed author Susan Cheever creates a remarkably human portrait of a man whose life and work both influenced and saved the lives of millions of people. Drawn from personal letters and diaries, records in a variety of archives, and hundreds of interviews, this definitive biography is the first fully documented account of Bill Wilson's life story. Alcoholics Anonymous is a worldwide organization that since 1935 has helped people break free from the destructive influence of intoxicating and addictive substances. This great wave of comfort and help that has covered the world had its beginning in one man, born shortly before the start of the twentieth century. Utilizing exhaustive research, Cheever traces Bill Wilson's life beginning with his birth in a small town in Vermont, where, following the breakup of his parents' marriage, he was raised primarily by his grandparents. Handsome and intelligent, with a wit and charm that both women and men responded to, he seemed at the outset to be capable of achieving anything he wanted. Wilson, however, also suffered from deep-seated insecurity, and once he was away from the provincial Vermont town, he found that alcohol helped relieve his self-doubts and brought out the charm and wit that had made him a favorite in school. "Help" eventually turned to dependence, and years after his first beer -- consumed at a Newport, Rhode Island, dinner party -- Bill Wilson finally had to come to terms with the fact that, while he loved the way alcohol made him feel, his life was spiraling out of control. Through a painful process of trial and error, using a blend of experiences, ideas, and medical knowledge gained through several hospitalizations, he was able to stop drinking. A few months later, when he met Dr. Robert Smith of Akron, Ohio, and was able to help him stop drinking also, Alcoholics Anonymous was born. Each man found in the other the support he needed to overcome the hold alcohol had on them. Together they discovered the power they had to help other alcoholics. Success did not come overnight, however, and as Cheever compellingly relates, Wilson had many struggles in a life fraught with controversies, including experiments with LSD and an unconventional fifty-three-year marriage. As one of the most influential and important thinkers of the twentieth century, Bill Wilson changed the way our society deals with addiction, and his ideas in turn have benefited countless individuals and their families. His life was complex, and in Susan Cheever's fascinating biography, he emerges as a man of great passion and courage; it is a story fully told for the first time.

Author: Elizabeth Royte
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608196631
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Second only to soda, bottled water is on the verge of becoming the most popular beverage in the country. The brands have become so ubiquitous that we're hardly conscious that Poland Spring and Evian were once real springs, bubbling in remote corners of Maine and France. Only now, with the water industry trading in the billions of dollars, have we begun to question what it is we're drinking. In this intelligent, accomplished work of narrative journalism, Elizabeth Royte does for water what Michael Pollan did for food: she finds the people, machines, economies, and cultural trends that bring it from distant aquifers to our supermarkets. Along the way, she investigates the questions we must inevitably answer. Who owns our water? How much should we drink? Should we have to pay for it? Is tap safe water safe to drink? And if so, how many chemicals are dumped in to make it potable? What happens to all those plastic bottles we carry around as predictably as cell phones? And of course, what's better: tap water or bottled?