Description
Book SynopsisAn accessible and critically illuminating guide to the social, political and cultural history of alcohol in England. Covering areas including law, public policy, medical thought, media representations and political philosophy, The politics of Alcohol will provide essential reading for anyone interested in either the history of alcohol consumption
Trade ReviewThis is an exciting account of how public, professional and political discourses on alcohol reveal underlying tensions around fundamental questions of individual freedom, the control of free markets, the relationship between the state and industry, and the cultural and political attitudes which have helped to shape alcohol policy across the centuries. The book successfully traces common themes through different historical periods to the present time as well as identifying key changes in the politics of alcohol'.
Dr Betsy Thom, Head of Social Policy Research Centre; Reader in Drug and Alcohol Studies at Middlesex University and Co-ordinating editor of the journal *Drugs: education, prevention and policy*
This introductory conceptualisation of his subject is constantly referred back to as the reader progresses through the chronological chapters and serves to give shape and meaning to a considerable amount of information.
... Nicholls has succeeded in producing an accessible introduction to the drink question in all its complexity.
All in all, it can be said that the book delivers what the title promises - a comprehensive compilation of information about the politicization of the issue of alcohol treated subjects in England.
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Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. A monstrous plant: acohol and the Reformation
2. Healths, toasts and pledges: political drinking in the seventeenth century
3. A new kind of drunkenness: the gin craze
4. The politics of sobriety: coffee and politics in Georgian England
5. A fascinating poison: early medical writing on drink
6. Ungovernable passions: intoxication and Romanticism
7. Odious monopolies: power, control and the 1830 Beer Act
8. The last tyrant: the rise of temperance
9. A monstrous theory: the politics of prohibition
10. The state and the trade: the drink question at the turn of the century
10. Central control: war and nationalisation
11. The study of inebriety: medicine and the law
12. The pub and the people: drinking places and popular culture
13. Prevention and health: alcohol and public health
14. Beer orders: the changing landscape in the 1990s
15. Drinking responsibly: media, government and binge drinking
Conclusion: the drink question today
Index
