Book Report History of the World in 6 Glasses Essay

A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage is about six drinks (beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and coca-cola) and how they have affected the world in the past and the present. All of these drinks were invented in different eras, and the inventions of these drinks were affected by what had occurred in the time period.

A) Distillation and distilled wine were considered a therapeutic and medicinal miracle. It went hand in hand with the infant science of perfume making and helped the rebirth of science in Europe by introducing new chemistry principals and by translating texts into many different languages. Ancient texts from Greece, India, and Persia were all centralized and translated in to Arabic, and

2.) In the 18th century, how did spirits change the balance of power amongst the western

The Greeks and the Romans were among the most influential societies in the history of the world. Evidence of Greek or Roman influence can be found in almost every culture or country that has ever existed. Though both cultures were different in practice and incredibly competitive with one another, their politics and their beliefs set the stage for future civilizations, including those of the modern world. In particular, the values and practices of Greek and Roman citizenship and politics, more than any other cultures, influences American policies today in terms of values, government, and self-image.

Ancient Greek culture had major influences on today’s culture; some of these influences include mathematics, government, art and architecture; they even did research in the field of medicine. Many cultures and religions have adapted their ideas from the ancient Greeks. Without the influences of the ancient Greeks our society wouldn’t be the way it is today. The Greek culture lasted from around 776 BCE to 146 BCE (though it is argued to have begun around 1000 BCE), during this time they invented many technologies and refined old technologies. These things are what caused the ancient Greek culture to be such a powerful influence on western society today.

The banning of wine in Islamic culture would be the basic start for the banning of many other foods. The prophet Muhammad's ban on alcohol is said to have started from a fight between two men who were under the influence. When Muhammad sought divine help from the one and only Allah, Allah's reply was to ban alcohol so that such a thing could not happen again. As for wine, it had a different story for the development of Christianity. Wine drinking was a tradition of Greeks and Romans. When "barbarians" took over Rome and Greece, wine drinking seemed to have halted. But as time went on, barbarians began to take up wine drinking again, sort of assimilating themselves into Greek culture. Barbarians soon became civilized, all thanks to the tradition of wine drinking.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage is a non-fiction historical novel, whose main purpose is to show the surprisingly pervasive influence of certain drinks on the course of history. Then it takes the reader on a journey through time to show the history of mankind through the lens of beverages.

People used wine to show that they are successful and have a higher social status ranking than others, leaving the ones who weren't wealthy and unsuccessful without wine. This began the first socially/economically divided empires. It was used in religious ceremonies, and used medicinally to heal wounds.

The author traces the history of the development of agriculture from China. The book reveals that food has been capable of doing more than sustain the population. In this regard, one surprising fact from the book is that food has acted as a primary tool of political organization, social transformation as well as geopolitical competition leading to shaping up the course of human progress. Also, it is surprising to note that food can be compared to some technology that has helped the humanity to structure and connect to other civilizations. In some cases, food has even been used as a military or an ideological weapon that has been used to decide the outcome of wars. Also, food can be connected to the process that culminates in the development of the economy as well as industrialization. Nowadays empires and industries have been built as a result of the importance of the food. Therefore following an archaeological perspective Tom Standage has effectively revealed how food has helped shape and transform the civilizations around the world. The transformation can be traced from the emergence of agricultural activities in China to the use of agricultural products such as corn and cane to develop ethanol among several other applications in the contemporary

1. From which advanced civilization/culture did Europeans get the “science” of how to make spirits?

The Greek civilization contributed greatly to the development of modern Western culture. Three of the most important contribution that are the foundations of our society are Language, Philosophy, and Government.

Beer started out as gruel, and as the gruel fermented it turned into beer. Now it was not the first form of alcohol, but it was an important kind of alcohol. Beer was made from cereal crops, which were very abundant, and because it was so abundant it could be made whenever it was needed. They then found an even easier way to make beer by using beer-bread. Beer bread is basically everything needed to make beer in a loaf, making it convenient to store the raw beer materials. Beer started as just a social drink but then blossomed into a “hallmark of civilization”, as seen by the Mesopotamians. Grain was the basis of the national diet, it was

Classical Greek culture had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean region and Europe. Greek culture influenced the development of Roman civilization because at first Rome absorbed ideas from Greek colonists in southern Italy, and they continued to borrow from Greek culture after they conquered Greece. Ancient Greece has had an enormous amount of impact on culture in the western world. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization. Rome conquered the Greek empire and its civilization, but Greek culture conquered imperial Rome. Furthermore, the Romans willingly

The culture in Ancient Rome has a massive impact on our society today, it influenced our sports, language, government, technology, etc.

While both Roman and Greek cultures greatly influenced Western Civilization, Greeks contributed more to the western world than the Romans. The Greeks used their own ideas and thought of new ways to add to their culture, while the Romans mostly mixed and matched ideas from other civilizations and cultures to make their own. The Romans took up the inheritance of the Greeks adapted it to their own language and national traditions. (Grant 2)The Greeks introduced many new ideas and traditions, the most important being democracy - Athenian democracy in particular.