• Beer and Early Civilizations: Beer, originating in Mesopotamia, played a crucial role in the development of agriculture and early civilizations, including Egypt, where it was used as currency and influenced the invention of writing.

• Wine's Rise to Prominence: Wine became the preferred drink by 870 BCE, symbolizing wealth and power, and was integral to Greek and Roman cultures, spreading across their empires.

• Spirits, Coffee, and Tea: Rum supported the British Royal Navy, while coffee and tea were pivotal in the Age of Reason and European power dynamics in the 18th and 19th centuries.

• Coca-Cola and Future Concerns: Coca-Cola has been a symbol of the information age, and Standage highlights the looming importance of water in the future, with billions currently lacking access to clean drinking water.

In the book A History of the World in 6 Glasses author Tom Standage introduces readers to a rich history of alcohol and its relationship to the flow history.  Standage gives a thought-provoking overview, from the origins of beer in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BCE to the consumption of Coca-Cola in the 21st century, fueling a 24/7 globalized world.  In between those early beginnings and now, wine, spirits, coffee, and tea were the Coca-Cola of their eras, lubricating the rise of Rome, as payment (in the form of Rum) on Atlantic trade routes, fueling the rise of coffee houses in 17th century Britain, and helping to foment a rebellion in the Boston Tea Party.  These six drinks underlie the thesis of Standage’s monograph, that “three contain alcohol, and three contain caffeine, but what they all have in common is that each one was the defining drink during a pivotal historical period, from antiquity to the present day.”

Standage’s book begins with the story of beer and the drink’s impact on human history.  It is likely that the discovery of beer coincided with the dawn of agriculture and was a factor in the rise of civilizations across Mesopotamia, as the gruel from which it was derived was used to make bread, as well.  In this way beer and farming helped sow the “seeds of modernity.” Egypt arose as one of the most advanced civilizations on Earth with beer and bread used as currency to pay daily wages for laborers.  Beer was instrumental for early modern man, “writing was originally invented to record the collection and distribution of grain, beer, bread, and other goods,” sealing its place in Western world-history.

By 870 BCE wine had displaced beer as the preferred drink, as evidenced by elaborate murals of King Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria, who had the largest banquet in history, with 69,574 attendees.  On these murals the King is depicted drinking wine, having been able to serve all the attendees, demonstrating his wealth and power.  “The reign of Ashurnasirpal…marked a turning point. Wine…started to become increasingly fashionable throughout the Near East and the eastern Mediterranean.” Wine fueled the philosophers and poets of Greece, while later the Romans adopted the drink and spread it across their vast empire.

Likewise, Rum is attributed with helping the British Royal Navy in its colonial efforts of the 18th century, where it combatted scurvy and even acted as payment on the high seas.  Coffee and tea played key roles in the Age of Reason and exercise of power in the late 18th and 19th century Europe. Coca-Cola is credited with fueling the information age.  And bottled water may be the drink of choice for parched inhabitants of a very warm future.  Finishing his monograph, Standage notes that “around 2 billion people use a drinking-water source contaminated with feces,” and that we may need to populate other worlds, requiring water, making the sourcing of water a profoundly important endeavor.

When Patrick Manning spoke of writing world history, he was writing of a ‘world stage’ which is “the representation of…successive portions of the world.”  He goes on, “The narrative must convey the drama of each scene yet also convey its significance for the wider world - the global domains beyond those on stage in the work.” Standage’s coverage of the early beginnings of Rum, it’s mass distribution in the form of Grog, and its importance in finance in the Atlantic demonstrates ‘drama’ and conveys the world-historical importance of these events in the narrative section.  Manning might ask, ‘What analogs did the Chinese or North American Indian have?’ or ‘What was the perspective of African people on the quick rise and use of Rum or Grog in the Atlantic in the 16th century.”  These are examples that illustrate a small part of the complexities involved in analyzing world history about which Manning writes.

Scholar Tracey Rizzo asks us to incorporate gendered viewpoints into world-historical narratives so that the language of historical analytical works reflects the views of women, gay, lesbian, and other voices, where available.  While “A History” might have failed to incorporate, for instance, the impact of drinking on English families, an impact which persisted over several or more centuries, one could argue that the monograph’s space and time dimensions were so sizeable that only traditionally recognizable historical events could be included.  Rizzo asks historians to think about “writing not only about the gender of world history but about the lives of women and men who perpetrated, survived, suffered…” and while “A History” is a compelling narrative, it does not try to incorporate a gendered analysis of the events.

Comparing Manning or Rizzo, or contrasting this monograph with other, similarly situated world-historical works by authors including Boonstra or Mazlish, tells us that the language that these authors use requires more work.  That they need changing and updating for a new world history for which people like Manning or Rizzo are advocating. The reality may be that this process of refining the study of world history, integrating the data from other disciplines such as anthropology and gender studies, constructing and formalizing a curriculum, and working with scholars in other, traditional fields of historical study – this may all be a long-term endeavor. Nevertheless, Manning asks us to keep up the fight for a more inclusive world history, one that will engender peace among people if enough voices from all over the world and from all backgrounds can add to the body of world historical knowledge.

References

Manning, Patrick. “Locating Africans on the World Stage: A Problem in World History.” Journal of World History 26, no. 3 (2015): 605–37.

Rizzo, Tracey. “Gender and Empire: Intimacies, Bodies, Detritus.” Journal of World History 28, no. 3/4 (2017): 313–39.

Standage, Tom. A History of the World in 6 Glasses. Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.