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Rating: 
Summary: good smart book about how colonial Americans drank like fish
Review: If you don't understand drinking, you don't understand American history. Colonial Americans drank like fish ‹ average whiskey consumption one pint daily. In the early 1800s they went on a bigger binge, mostly on hard liquor and drinking alone, rather than sociably like in the old days. Rorabaugh says this explains how the temperance movement came up just then, & it was the stress of industrialization & frontier loneliness & inflated dreams for the new nation. Readable & smart & has the good modern historical perspective on ³alcoholism² but¹s still skeptical of heavy intoxicant use.
Rating: 
Summary: The Drunkenness of the American Tradition
Review: If you enjoy reading history, pull up a chair and pour down the whisky because you are going to read "The Alcoholic Republic." It is on the drinking patterns in the United States and the reading is simply interesting as well fascinating. You thought drinking was terrible these days lets go back to the great alcoholic binge of the nineteenth century. "It was the consensus, then, among a wide variety of observers that Americans drank great quantities of alcohol. The beverages they drank were for the most part distilled liquors, commonly known as spirits.. whiskey, rum, gin and brandy. On the average those liquors were 45 percent alcohol, or, in the language of distillers, 90 proof." (Page 7) It is simply a fun history book to read and recommend the drunkenness to anyone interested in the drinking habits of previous Americans. I give it five stars because it is one of the most interesting history books I have read in a long time.
Rating:
Summary: The Drunkenness of the American Tradition
Review: If you enjoy reading history, pull up a chair and pour down the whisky because you are going to read "The Alcoholic Republic." It is on the drinking patterns in the United States and the reading is simply interesting as well fascinating. You thought drinking was terrible these days lets go back to the great alcoholic binge of the nineteenth century. "It was the consensus, then, among a wide variety of observers that Americans drank great quantities of alcohol. The beverages they drank were for the most part distilled liquors, commonly known as spirits.. whiskey, rum, gin and brandy. On the average those liquors were 45 percent alcohol, or, in the language of distillers, 90 proof." (Page 7) It is simply a fun history book to read and recommend the drunkenness to anyone interested in the drinking habits of previous Americans. I give it five stars because it is one of the most interesting history books I have read in a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Study on American Alcoholic Consumption
Review: William Rorabaugh, an associate professor of History at the University of Washington, provides a very interesting study of alcoholic consumption in the United States from the 18th century through the mid 1800s. He looks at the issue from the supply side (expense and technology in the production of distilled beverages and the import of rum) and the demand side. There is some eye-opening information in this work. The annual per capita consumption of alcohol between 1800-1830 exceeded 5 gallons; nearly triple today's consumption (p. 8). The demand for alcohol (particularly whiskey) stemmed from such things as alleged medical and dietary benefits, social camaraderie, a way to cope with a rapidly changing society, and such particle reasons as the lack of alternatives (water and milk was unhealthy and other substitutes were comparatively expensive) and strong beverages were needed to overcome the bland, monotonous American diet. Rorabaugh also devotes much of this study to the medical and moral critics of alcohol, including temperance societies. One doctor in the 1740s favored moderation: "not more than one bottle of wine each evening" (p. 32). I believe there is a lot of over-generalization in this study, especially when disillusionment over the voting system and the burden of living up to the ideals of the independent man are used as reasons for drinking (although drinking probably came before such feelings). Still, the book is extremely well-researched, with source notes at the end and several appendixes on estimating consumption of alcohol, cross-national comparisons of consumption, and cook books. The text, excluding the appendixes, is 222 pages and includes illustrations.
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