What was the alcoholic republic

Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Alcoholic Republic by William J. A bold and frequently illuminating att "Rorabaugh has written a well thought out and intriguing social history of America's great alcoholic binge that occurred between and , what he terms 'a key formative period' in our history Get A Copy.

Paperback , pages. More Details Original Title. Other Editions 3. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Alcoholic Republic , please sign up. Aric Gardner This person was clearly drunk. See 1 question about Alcoholic Republic….

Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. Sort order. Sep 11, Geoff Sebesta rated it it was amazing Shelves: good-books-on-the-civil-war. This is one of those books of a quality that only comes along once or twice a year. Easily one of the most perceptive works of social history I've ever read, in a way that is both ambitious and precise. Rorabaugh has clearly found one of the main threads to American history, and it's one that we all laugh at or ignore so we missed.

Apparently Americans drank more from to than they ever have before or since, and the author sets out to explain why. He does a pretty good job on such an ama This is one of those books of a quality that only comes along once or twice a year. He does a pretty good job on such an amazingly large topic in only pages and some well-padded-out appendices.

It isn't only that the trade in alcoholic beverages was the foundation of the great American marketplace or the tension between temperance and nontemperance set the pace for the Civil War.

Rorabaugh attempts to deal with realities of American life so enormous that we don't even try to address them. Rorabaugh actually discusses the issue of loneliness to transappalachian society. This is something so obvious that I'm amazed I've never read it before.

He deals with human motivation and the difficulty of realizing dreams in American society -- and how that leads to drink -- and exactly what kind of drink that leads to.

And he backs it up with numbers! And he's also got a wicked sense of humor. I can't list the ways this book transformed my understanding of the American soul and the American marketplace. I understand more about the War on Drugs than I ever have before -- and this book was written before Reagan took office! Can't recommend it highly enough. View 2 comments. Dec 13, Thomas rated it really liked it Shelves: random-intrest , history.

This book is an interesting read. One review put it best, "Scholarly and entertaining The author succeeds in using one category of our material culture--drinking--as a window on the whole society. What we see is sometimes amusing and sometimes appalling Yet in the fourth Whiskey feed it picks back up as the author begins to delve into the root of the drinking problem for early Americans C This book is an interesting read.

Yet in the fourth Whiskey feed it picks back up as the author begins to delve into the root of the drinking problem for early Americans Circa 's's which he defines as Anxieties. The Anxieties stem from a changing country that left many feeling uneasy and unsettled. Alcohol become the answer. Yet in later 19th century the imbibing turned into the race for material goods, and an almost obsessive nature in religious revival, which took the place of the anxiety reducer alchohol for the troubled citizens of the U.

Apr 20, Pete rated it really liked it. Apr 11, Sandra Hernandez rated it liked it. I read this in my first year of ollege, bad idea on behalf of the professor.

I remember feeling justified in heavy drinking. This book is a great read and a token of history people like to deny. Drink up America, that's been our past time longer than baseball. Apr 26, Riley rated it really liked it. A look at why Americans drank so much in the early years of the country, this book delves into economic, social and psychological reasons.

Here's one of the economic factors, for farmers isolated in the interior of the country: "To market their surplus grain more profitably, western farmers turned to distilling. Whiskey could be shipped to eastern markets through New Orleans or overland.

A man could make money sending his whiskey overland by pack animal because distillation so reduced the bulk of A look at why Americans drank so much in the early years of the country, this book delves into economic, social and psychological reasons. A man could make money sending his whiskey overland by pack animal because distillation so reduced the bulk of grain that a horse could carry six times as much corn in that form.

Thus, a western planter could load his horse with liquor, head across the mountains, trade some of the alcohol for feed en route, and arrive in the East with a surplus to sell in a favorable eastern whiskey market.

Whereas corn sold for 25 cents a bushel in Kentucky, whiskey brought, after trip expenses, four times that amount in Philadelphia. This is part of my American history inquiries into the role alcohol has played in the American economy, a closer fit than Albion's Seed and Smuggler Nation, the novel by David Liss, The Whiskey Rebellion.

American children learn about the Boston Tea Party, a protest against taxation by the Brits, somewhere in middle school where they also learn about the triangle of trade between America, Africa and the Caribbean. But they rarely learn about our founders engagement in smuggling, nor so they unde This is part of my American history inquiries into the role alcohol has played in the American economy, a closer fit than Albion's Seed and Smuggler Nation, the novel by David Liss, The Whiskey Rebellion.

But they rarely learn about our founders engagement in smuggling, nor so they understand the importance of currency in paying taxes. In colonial America many people relied on the traditional debt structure from British banks to finance their establishment in the new world.

But the banks were very far away and currency was not coming into the colonies as fast a money was leaving it to buy British manufactured goods. In short the colonists had difficulty finding actual money to pay debts and taxes on ships stopped by the British for searches. So the British ships would often claim the cargo for a tax offence, especially when that involved a desirable commodity, like rum. Rum itself became an alternative currency, one which appreciated value as it aged.

It started out a molasses purchased in the "West indies" often from non-British colonies, and was shipped to New England where it was distilled into rum, and sold or exported to buy slaves. The triangle model seems to imply that it had a circular direction, molasses to New England, rum to Africa, slaves to the West Indies but actually all of the legs of the triangle ran in both directions-rum and American goods were shifted back to the Caribbean, slaves were brought up the colonial coast, etc.

The most notable thing in my mind was that people purchased as slaves actually were priced by the hogshead This is one of the roots of the American search laws, and the reason many of the founders were smugglers. This book gives important information about the nature of colonial trade, the reasons smuggling proliferated in colonial America.

It also focused on American drinking habits, and the reason for the customs around alcohol consumption in astonishing amounts. The American Revolution interrupted the rum imports, so people began to turn to alcoholic beverages they could produce themselves, whiskey being the favorite, in addition to homemade cider, brandies. Your list has reached the maximum number of items.

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Would you also like to submit a review for this item? You already recently rated this item. Your rating has been recorded. Write a review Rate this item: 1 2 3 4 5. Preview this item Preview this item. American men were taught to drink as children--even as babies. However, alcohol usages crossed sexual, regional, racial and class lines. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

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