First published in 1987, Constructive Drinking studies the functions drinking plays within society. A series of original case studies deal with a variety of exotic - not just alcohol - from a variety of cultural and geographical contexts.

Drinking and drunkenness have become a focal point for political and media debates to contest notions of responsibility, discipline and risk; yet, at the same time, academic studies have highlighted the positive aspects of drinking in relation to sociability, belonging and identity. These issues are at the heart of this volume, which brings together the work of academics and researchers exploring social and cultural aspects of contemporary drinking practices. These drinking practices are enormously varied and are spatially and culturally defined. The contributions to the volume draw on research settings from across the UK and beyond to demonstrate both the complexity and diversity of drinking subjectivities and practices. Across these examples tensions relating to gender, social class, age and the life course are particularly prominent. Rather than align to now long-established moral discourses about what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ drinking, sociological approaches to alcohol foreground the vivid, lived, nature of alcohol consumption and the associated experiences of drunkenness and intoxication. In doing so, the volume illuminates the controversial yet important social and cultural roles played by drink for individuals and groups across a range of social contexts.

Over the last decades quite a few studies have been devoted to drinking. Most of these were concerned with alcohol and written by social anthropologists. This book presents multidisciplinary aspects of the ingestion of liquids at large, addressing many of the overt and covert meanings of drinking: from satisfying biological needs to communicating with humans and the hereafter, attempting to reach a differential emotional state or seeking good health and longevity through the ingestion of appropriate beverages. It includes papers from both biological and social scientists and covers a fair range of societies from rural and urban environments, and in continents and countries ranging from Europe, Africa, and Latin America to Malaysia and the Pacific.

A lively exploration into America’s preoccupation with childhood innocence and its corruption In The Drinking Curriculum, Elizabeth Marshall brings the taboo topic of alcohol and childhood into the limelight. Marshall coins the term “the drinking curriculum” to describe how a paradoxical set of cultural lessons about childhood are fueled by adult anxieties and preoccupations. By analyzing popular and widely accessible texts in visual culture—temperance tracts, cartoons, film, advertisements, and public-service announcements—Marshall demonstrates how youth are targets of mixed messages about intoxication. Those messages range from the overtly violent to the humorous, the moralistic to the profane. Offering a critical and, at times, irreverent analysis of dominant protectionist paradigms that sanctify childhood as implicitly innocent, The Drinking Curriculum centers the graphic narratives our culture uses to teach about alcohol, the roots of these pictorial tales in the nineteenth century, and the discursive hangover we nurse into the twenty-first.

A 2017 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title award winner *********************************************** This book is an introduction to the history of alcoholic drink in England from the end of the Middle Ages to the present day. Treating the subject thematically, it covers who drank, what they drank, how much, who produced and sold drink, the places where it was enjoyed and the meanings which drinking had for people. It also looks at the varied opposition to drinking and the ways in which it has been regulated and policed. As a social and cultural history, it examines the place of drink in society and how social developments have affected its history and what it meant to individuals and groups as a cultural practice. Covering an extended period in time, this book takes in the important changes brought about by the Reformation and the processes of industrialization and urbanization. This volume also focuses on drink in relation to class and gender and the importance of global developments, along with the significance of regional and local difference. Whilst a work of history, it draws upon the insights of a range of other disciplines which have together advanced our understanding of alcohol. The focus is England, but it acknowledges the importance of comparison with the experience of other countries in furthering our understanding of England’s particular experience. This book argues for the centrality of drink in English society throughout the period under consideration, whilst emphasizing the ways in which its use, abuse and how they have been experienced and perceived have changed at different historical moments. It is the first scholarly work which covers the history of drink in England in all its aspects over such an extended period of time. Written in a lively and approachable style, this book is suitable for those who study social and cultural history, as well as those with an interest in the history of drink in England.

This book examines continuity and change in the functions of Scottish drinking places.

Bringing together scholars from different disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, this multidisciplinary Handbook offers a comprehensive critical overview of intoxicants and intoxication. The Handbook is divided into 34 chapters across eight thematic sections covering a wide range of issues, including the meanings of intoxicants; the social life of intoxicants; intoxication settings; intoxication practices; alternative approaches to the study of intoxication; scapegoated intoxicants; discourses shaping intoxication; and changing notions of excess. It explores a range of different intoxicants, including alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, and legal and illicit drugs, including amphetamine, cannabis, ecstasy, khat, methadone, and opiates. Chapter length case studies explore these intoxicants in a variety of countries, including the USA, the UK, Australia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Singapore, and Sweden, across a broad timespan covering the nineteenth century to the present day. This wide-ranging Handbook will be of great interest to researchers, students, and instructors within the humanities and social sciences with an interest in a wide range of different intoxicants and different intoxication practices. Chapters 15 and 31 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

With contributions from leading international academics across the social sciences, this accessible handbook takes a critical look at the key theories, disciplinary approaches, contemporary issues and debates in the field. · Part I Central Social Science Theories Drug and Alcohol Studies · Part II Pillars in Social Science Drug and Alcohol Studies · Part III Controversies and New Approaches in Social Science Drug and Alcohol Studies This Handbook is an excellent reference text for the growing number of academics, students, scientists and practitioners in the drug and alcohol studies community.

Scholars across the humanities and social sciences are increasingly examining the importance of consumption to changing notions of local, regional, national and supranational identity in Europe. As part of this interest, anthropologists, historians, sociologists and others have paid particular attention to the roles which food and drink have played in the construction of local, regional and national identity in Europe. This volume provides the first multidisciplinary look at the contributions which food and alcohol make to contemporary European identities, including the part they play in processes of European integration and Europeanization. It provides theoretically informed ethnographic and historical case studies of transformations and continuity in social and cultural patterns in the production and consumption of European foods and drinks, in order to explore how eating and drinking have helped to construct various local, regional and national identities in Europe. Of particular note in this volume is its attention to how food and drink intersect with recent attempts to foster greater European integration, in part through the recognition and support of common and diverse European cultures and identities.

This book is based on the premise that drinking behaviors are primarily learned. The contributors to the book explore the complex array of individual and social factors that impact the development of drinking patterns. They traverse family and culture influences, and the role played by schools, government, and the beverage alcohol industry. Learning About Drinking offers a rigorous and scholarly examination of drinking behavior brought to life with illustrative cases drawn from around the world. Social policymakers, historians, anthropologists, public health specialists, as well as mental health professionals will find this book of value. Learning About Drinking offers a refreshing, evidence-based look at a process that has too often been taken for granted.