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Drinking in America: Our Secret History by [Susan Cheever]

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Susan Cheever

Drinking in America: Our Secret History Kindle Edition

by Susan Cheever (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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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.

Print length

273 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Twelve
Publication date

October 13, 2015
File size

987 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A fascinating look at the place and function of alcohol throughout American history...[Cheever] offers a colorful portrait of a society that, like her own family, has been indelibly shaped by its drinking habits. An intelligently argued study of our country's 'passionate connection to drinking.'"

―Kirkus Reviews

"Susan Cheever offers a humane but unsentimental view of our nation's inebriated past in DRINKING IN AMERICA. To excuse the pun, it's an addictive read full of wit and verve, revealing the deep influence of alcohol on many of our country's most significant moments, from the landing at Plymouth Harbour, to the Kennedy Assassination and Watergate. This is terrific social history but not as it's usually told, and all the better for it."

―Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire (winner of the Whitbread) and A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War

"Cheever's central observation is fascinating...The melting pot, it seems, was also a mixing bowl."

―Publishers Weekly

"Insightful...well-researched and well-developed...An engrossing, in-depth examination of the profound ways alcohol and drinking have shaped and contributed to American history."

―Shelf Awareness

"Cheever is full of such shocking and often delightful revelations of a history we never learned in school."

―Newsday

"I can't stop raving (soberly!) about Susan Cheever's new book... It is both enlightening and frightening. A brilliant and important addition to our understanding of what goes wrong and what can continue to go wrong in a world dominated by the most deadly legal liquid ever invented."

―Judy Collins

"Compelling...[a] brisk drinker's companion to US history, which runs a black light over the archives to ask: who was loaded, and why did it matter?... It's the fourth of Wilson's famous 12 steps that made it common practice for sober folk to dig into their own pasts in order to articulate the role of alcohol - to create a 'searching and fearless moral inventory' - and with DRINKING IN AMERICA, Cheever submits the US to a similar investigation. Along the way, we see a country struggling to negotiate its freedoms, nurtured by alcohol and undone by it as well....This approach can be illuminating, turning those sepia-toned historical figures in wigs into uncertain young men with tankards of rum in their hands."

―Los Angeles Review of Books

"Cheever serves up a sober cocktail of American history...offers up sideways views that are intriguing."

―Associated Press

"Full of compelling ideas...Cheever is smart, perceptive and disciplined...Her Nixon chapter in particular is alternately horrifying and delightful, and paints a compelling picture of the monstrous complexity of a 'great man.'"

―Buffalo News

"Vivid...some of the book's most affecting moments arrive when Cheever discusses her family's drinking problems. "

―The San Francisco Chronicle --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Susan Cheever is the author of the biographies E.E. Cummings, American Bloomsbury, and My Name Is Bill, as well as five novels and four memoirs. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Newsday, among other magazines and anthologies. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, has been nominated for a National Book Circle Award, and won the Boston Globe Winship medal. She attended Brown University and has taught at many places, including Yale, Brown, Columbia, the New School, and Bennington College.

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00T3E77R8
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Twelve (October 13, 2015)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 13, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 987 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 273 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #603,116 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #103 in Beer (Kindle Store)
- #342 in Gastronomy History (Kindle Store)
- #389 in Beer (Books)

Customer Reviews:
143 ratings

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3 star		14%
2 star		8%
1 star		8%

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Top reviews from the United States

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T. Jennings

A propose a toast

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2020

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The Mayflower landed on Plymouth Rock instead of sailing farther south to winter over due to a shortage of beer.

The flames of the American Revolution were fanned at The Green Dragon Tavern in Boston, meeting place of The Sons of the Liberty, including the protests leading to the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party.

The Battle in Lexington Green was little more than a drunken skirmish.

Ethan Allen took Fort Ticonderoga with the help of a little “liquid courage”.

George Washington learned early in his political career that the level of political success paralleled the amount of alcohol you provided your constituents.

The Adams Family struggled with alcoholism. John and Abigail lost two sons to Alcoholism.

The first real test of federal power was when Pennsylvania Farmers launched an armed rebellion against the Federal Government due to taxes levied on the production of Whiskey, called the Whiskey Rebellion.

John Chapman, also know as Johnny Appleseed, did travel the frontier with apple seeds. But not to provide people with a delicious and healthy treat, he was promoting the fermentation of Hard Apple Cider.

One of U. S. Grant’s Adjutant, Colonel John Rawlins primary jobs was to monitor Grants drinking so that his alcoholism wouldn’t effect his decision making in the battlefield.

These, and many other facts, concerning how alcohol consumption played a roll in American History are in the interesting book.

3 people found this helpful

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R. DELLAGOSTINO

Publisher Needs Fact-Checkers for Purported Histories

Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2016

Verified Purchase

I was really looking forward to this book, but am now really disappointed. My major problems have been noted by other reviewers, primarily a disjointed timeline (bouncing back and forth time-wise in seemingly random fashion), and worse in my view, factual errors. For example, the writer states that gold was found in California when John Sutter found some flakes while crossing a river. The well-known fact (at least well-known to anyone who has actually studied the history of gold in California) was that John Marshall discovered gold at the site of Sutter's Mill in the Sierra. Another 'error' in my view is the writer stating that Meriwether Lewis attended Washington & Lee University, when it was not named that until after the death of Robert E. Lee. To sum up, I find the book poorly written, and because of its many factual errors, not the kind of history one would expect to find from a widely published and recognized author. The publisher should give serious consideration to employing fact-checkers before publishing any further 'histories' by the author in question.

12 people found this helpful

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Douglas Bromley

Interesting take on American history

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2020

Verified Purchase

The history was very interesting with the focus on how alcoholic beverages may have influenced decisions made by historical Americans. However, I didn’t really enjoy the discussions about alcoholism and the family. I was not really looking to be almost preached at about how alcoholic people affect their families. General Grant may have made bold decisions due to alcoholism that changed the course of the Civil War. Those stories are interesting. I don’t care about how it may have hurt his family.

Helpful

j. Fisher

Interesting and good read but too many mistakes to make the rest truly believable.

Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

Too many mistakes. She says the Missouri river runs through Nebraska for instance. And the Transcontinental RR runs from St Louis to California. One doesn't know what else she says is incorrect.

One person found this helpful

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E. Cartwright

Great disappointment

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2016

Verified Purchase

This book was a great disappointment. I am glad it was free and I paid nothing for it. If a book claims to be some kind of history, I expect that the author has made some kind of effort to present history accurately. From the beginning, the author stated many historical inaccuracies. And in the latter part of the book, it became evident she was presenting as historical facts things that she THOUGHT might be true just to prove her points. It was also clear that she used people she just did not like as examples of drunks. She totally lost me when she blamed the Iraq war on Pres. Bush's drinking. I thought that war was a mistake but really? He had quit drinking long before that. What ever this book is, it is not history.

27 people found this helpful

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Edward Ramos

Learned a lot new facts of American history in relation to drinking

Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book would definitely leave you in disbelief on how significantly drinking has influenced American history. This was a very good read.

Helpful

but the writing style is pretty terrible. Jumping from topics or locations

Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2016

Verified Purchase

Interesting topic, but the writing style is pretty terrible. Jumping from topics or locations, too many names, repeating things.
Once again, a book written to fill more than 30 pages which would have been enough.

9 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Book in Quality Condition

Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2021

Verified Purchase

We received the book in quality condition and makes for a very amusing read. It was actually recommended by our family friend, a pastor. Enjoy!

Helpful

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Wolfs Monique

Drinking in America

Reviewed in Germany on November 15, 2015

Verified Purchase

Locker vom Hocker geschrieben. Mayflower Compact verzerrt als demokratisches Grundsatzdokument eingeordnet; FDR fehlt ganz, dessen Wahlkampf gg. Hoover 1932 zur Aufhebung der Prohibition. Es ist doch zu einfach und einseitig, die Geschichte von einer einzigen Seite her aufrollen zu wollen.

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