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A History Of The World In Six Glasses Hardcover – June 1, 2005

by Tom Standage (Author)

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From beer to Coca-Cola, the six drinks that have helped shape human history.

Throughout human history. certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization.

For Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again.

Print length

311 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Walker Books
Publication date

June 1, 2005
Dimensions

5.66 x 1.24 x 8.34 inches
ISBN-10

0802714471
ISBN-13

978-0802714473
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Popular Highlights in this book

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sharing a drink with someone is a universal symbol of hospitality and friendship. It signals that the person offering the drink can be trusted, by demonstrating that it is not poisoned or otherwise unsuitable for consumption.
Highlighted by 1,820 Kindle readers
The Mesopotamians regarded the consumption of bread and beer as one of the things that distinguished them from savages and made them fully human.
Highlighted by 1,761 Kindle readers
Rum was the liquid embodiment of both the triumph and the oppression of the first era of globalization.
Highlighted by 1,486 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Standage starts with a bold hypothesis—that each epoch, from the Stone Age to the present, has had its signature beverage—and takes readers on an extraordinary trip through world history. The Economist's technology editor has the ability to connect the smallest detail to the big picture and a knack for summarizing vast concepts in a few sentences. He explains how, when humans shifted from hunting and gathering to farming, they saved surplus grain, which sometimes fermented into beer. The Greeks took grapes and made wine, later borrowed by the Romans and the Christians. Arabic scientists experimented with distillation and produced spirits, the ideal drink for long voyages of exploration. Coffee also spread quickly from Arabia to Europe, becoming the "intellectual counterpoint to the geographical expansion of the Age of Exploration." European coffee-houses, which functioned as "the Internet of the Age of Reason," facilitated scientific, financial and industrial cross-fertilization. In the British industrial revolution that followed, tea "was the lubricant that kept the factories running smoothly." Finally, the rise of American capitalism is mirrored in the history of Coca-Cola, which started as a more or less handmade medicinal drink but morphed into a mass-produced global commodity over the course of the 20th century. In and around these grand ideas, Standage tucks some wonderful tidbits—on the antibacterial qualities of tea, Mecca's coffee trials in 1511, Visigoth penalties for destroying vineyards—ending with a delightful appendix suggesting ways readers can sample ancient beverages. 24 b&w illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Historian Standage explores the significant role that six beverages have played in the world's history. Few realize the prominence of beer in ancient Egypt, but it was crucial to both cultural and religious life throughout the Fertile Crescent, appearing even in the Gilgamesh epic. Wine's history has been recounted in many places, and its use to avoid often--polluted water supplies made it ubiquitous wherever grapes could be easily cultivated. Spirits, first manufactured by Arabs and later rejected by them with the rise of Islam, played a fundamental role in the ascendance of the British navy. As a stimulant, coffee found no hostility within Islam's tenets, and its use spread as the faith moved out of Arabia into Asia and Europe. Tea enjoyed similar status, and it bound China and India to the West. Cola drinks, a modern American phenomenon, relied on American mass-marketing skills to achieve dominance. An appendix gives some modern sources for some of the primitive beers and wines described in the text. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Walker Books; First Edition (June 1, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 311 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802714471
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802714473
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.66 x 1.24 x 8.34 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #204,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #108 in Coffee & Tea (Books)
- #269 in Food Science (Books)
- #470 in Russian History (Books)

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4.5 3,789 ratings

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Tom Standage

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Tom Standage is deputy editor of The Economist, overseeing its strategy and output on digital platforms, including the web, apps, audio, video and social media. He joined The Economist in 1998 and previously served as Digital Editor, Business Affairs Editor, Business Editor, Technology Editor and Science Correspondent. He is a regular radio commentator and keynote speaker on technology trends, and takes a particular interest in the social and cultural impact of technology. Tom is also the author of six history books, including “Writing on the Wall: Social Media—The First 2,000 Years”; the New York Times bestsellers “A History of the World in Six Glasses” (2005) and “An Edible History of Humanity” (2009); and “The Victorian Internet” (1998), a history of the telegraph. His writing has appeared in other publications including the New York Times, the Guardian and Wired. He holds a degree in engineering and computer science from Oxford University, and is the least musical member of a musical family. He is married and lives in London with his wife and children.

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Alex Curtis

Not the Story I Expected, But Pleasantly Surprised

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2023

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I picked this book up on a whim while traveling. I’m fascinated with history of spirits (particularly whiskey, scotch, bourbon) and thought this book would be a good coverage of other drink histories as an anthology style text.

I was very wrong about what this book was, but also not disappointed.

I ended up reading the first two main sections (covering beer and wine respectively) in a single sitting. This spanned about 100 pages. I learned so much about the culture of these drinks that I had never known before, such as that beer was one of the earliest currencies in Mesopotamia and Egyptian empires. It actually was a store of value that could be split, combined, stored, and bartered with like you would with cash today. The author also suggests (with appropriate sources) of a plot where beer influenced the creation of the Egyptian pyramids. The story continues leading into the rise of wine, how new empires rose like Greece and eventually Rome largely driven by wine as a beverage and the agricultural requirements to produce it and the financial windfalls from selling it.

I was wrong about this book because I expected to learn about the drinks themselves. There’s a little bit of that , but only to the extent of providing details to flesh out the overarching historical story. The focus is on telling a brief history of the world and how new beverages played a role in altering or influencing history and culture along the way. The author largely abandons beverages after they play their role in his historical narrative. For example Beer began in Mesopotamia and then continued to influence Egypt. The story focuses on that, but never mentions advancements or changes in beer from Egyptian times through modern even though it continued to evolve over the next 6,000 years. Similarly wine is vital in modern or even medieval French and Italian cultures, but it is not mentioned past its spotlight of Greek and Roman cultural dominance. Despite tea’s importance since 3,000BC Chinese empires, it is only mentioned as an anecdote here, since the focus is later in the author’s historical narrative with England’s use of it for invading India and its role in the American Revolution.

This is very much a selective history of the major world powers from about 4,000BC until Modern Day. Each beverage plays one dominant slice of that narrative in the order of Beer, Wine, Spirits, Coffee, Tea, and then Coca-Cola.

Despite this surprise, I did enjoy the book. It’s a fresh take on a non-fiction history book by turning it into a continuous narrative which reads almost like a novel. I think this style will attract and retain more readers than what I originally expected. The author puts significant attention on cultural changes and cultural affects that happened overtime, less effort on specific historical events or the science of the drinks.

Of the 6 drinks that get focus in the book, some are more interesting than others. In order of most favorite to least favorite I liked:

1. Coca Cola
2. Beer
3. Wine
4. Spirits
5. Coffee
6. Tea

This surprised me. Because I was most interested in learning about spirits, coffee, and tea, and those ranked the lowest on my list. I found those sections less engaging. By contrast, I had ZERO interest in Coca Cola. Yet, that was the most fascinating section to me.

There are tons of fun stories in this book and I think everyone will find it interesting. I enjoy the fun spin on a world history crash course and the angle it allowed us to explore unique aspects of culture and society through the lens of influential beverages. Highly recommend this read for everyone!

10 people found this helpful

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A Little Dry at First but Ultimately A Smooth and Enlightening Book

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2012

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A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage

"A History of the World in 6 Glasses" is a view of the history of the world through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Science correspondent and accomplished author Tom Standage has come up with a clever book that shows how the aforementioned drinks were reflections of the eras in which they were created. This 311-page book is broken out by the six drinks (two chapters per drink): Beer in Mesopotamia and Egypt, Wine in Greece and Rome, Spirits in the Colonial Period, Coffee in the Age of Reason, Tea and the British Empire and Coca-Cola and the Rise of America.

Positives:
1. A fun way to learn about history.
2. A well-written and well researched book. Reads like a novel.
3. A fascinating topic. The author cleverly charts the flow of history through six beverages: beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola.
4. Every beverage has a story and the author does a good job of relaying it.
5. Great use of basic science to explain how the beverages were discovered.
6. Interesting tidbits throughout the book. This is the greatest strength of this book. Some of the stories will definitely stick with you.
7. Interesting perspective on beer, "it seems most likely that beer drinking was just one of the many factors that helped to tip the balance away from hunting and gathering and toward farming and a sedentary lifestyle based on small settlements".
8. Guaranteed to learn something amusing, spoiler alert..."The workers who built the pyramids were paid in beer..."
9. I love the stories of how mythology and beverages intertwine, "According to one legend, Dionysus, the god of wine, fled to Greece to escape beer-loving Mesopotamia".
10. The philosophy of drinking wine.
11. What wine represented to the Romans. Once again, some amusing stories, a recurring theme of this book.
12. The relationship between some of these beverages to medicine/health.
13. The relationship between the beverages and religion. Amazing...
14. The invention of distillation.
15. Interesting stories of how some of these beverages were used as a form of currency.
16. The evil trade of slavery and how alcohol was related. Enlightening information.
17. Find out what truly was the decisive factor in the Royal Navy's victory over the French and Spanish fleets.
18. The impact of rum for the North American colonists. Everything to do with American history and its relation to alcohol was fascinating. Colonialism by the bottles.
19. The second half of the book dealing with caffeinated drinks was superior to the first half.
20. The diffusion of rationalism and the relationship to coffee. Great stuff.
21. The history of coffeehouses. The drink of intellectuals. Great stories.
22. Each chapter opens up with a quote, "Better to be deprived of food for three days than of tea for one". Chinese proverb.
23. China, England and it's a tea thing. Fascinating history.
24. The fascinating history of tea. Very popular with women, who had been excluded from coffeehouses.
25. My favorite chapters in the book had to do with Coca Cola.
26. Coca Cola and lawsuits. "Wiley put Coca-Cola on trial in 1911, in a federal case titled the United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola. In court, religious fundamentalists railed against the evils of Coca Cola, blaming its caffeine content for promoting sexual transgressions..." I live for tidbits like this.
27. Coca Cola the global icon.
28. The epilogue provides the impact of water.
29. A cool appendix on ancient drinks.
30. Notes and sources.

Negatives:
1. As much fun as the book was to read, the quality wasn't consistent throughout. To illustrate my point, I felt that the chapters on caffeinated drinks (coffee, tea and coca-cola) were superior to the ones pertaining to the alcoholic beverages (beer, wine and spirits).
2. In desperate need of a timeline chart. The author has a tendency of going back and forth in time which may cause the reader to lose their point of reference a timeline chart describing the main milestones of a given beverage would have certainly helped.
3. The lack of charts and diagrams that would have aided the reader in understanding the full impact of the beverages involved. As an example, consumption of a given drink by country...
4. A bit repetitive at times. Sometimes the author has a tendency to overstay his welcome with some tidbits...
5. The history that is here is really simplified. This book is more an entertaining look at the impact and influence the beverages had in the context of the societies in which they were consumed. That being said, don't underestimate what is here.
6. The Kindle version of the book garbled up some words.
7. Links not included for Kindle.

In summary, I enjoyed reading "A History of the World in 6 Glasses". It's a fun and at times enlightening read. Cocktails will never be the same, now that I have added to my repertoire thanks in large part to all the fun facts that I picked up from this book. That being said, the danger with a book like this is that it is too general for history buffs and it may not be interesting enough early on to keep the casual reader engaged. So as long as you are not expecting an in-depth history lesson and have a little patience with the drier sections of this book, it will go down smoothly and ultimately lead to a satisfying experience. I recommend it.

20 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Mary Portelance

A date with history

Reviewed in Canada on November 22, 2021

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I enjoyed reading the book and learning the history of wine/beer. The book is well written, easy to follow, and makes an excellent gift for anyone interested in history or who drinks either or both wine and beer. I recommend purchasing it as a gift for friends.

One person found this helpful

JosineStiller

Durst!

Reviewed in Germany on January 21, 2023

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Das Buch ist angenehm zu lesen und beschreibt auf interessante Weise, wie Getränke unsere Welt formten. Das Wein-Kapitel ist besonders interessant, denn das Getränk entstand ausgerechnet dort, wo heutzutage Alkohol verboten ist.

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Cristina F.

Ottimo libro

Reviewed in Italy on November 20, 2019

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Ho letto questo libro in italiano e l'ho comprato in inglese per farlo leggere anche al mio compagno americano. Assolutamente particolare ed interessantissima una narrazione dell'evoluzione socio-culturale dell'uomo sulla base delle bevande da lui inventate/scoperte. Interessantissimo.

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udayan a.

Simple language and running stories.

Reviewed in India on November 15, 2018

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The author has emossed a vast knowledge of things as narrated into this book. The facts told therein are quotable without any error.

One person found this helpful

Timmer

Interesting read.

Reviewed in Canada on April 15, 2023