The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol

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Temple University Press, 2004 - 345 頁
Thousands of years ago, before Christ or Buddha or Muhammad...before the Roman Empire rose or the Colossus of Rhodes fell, Eric Burns writes, people in Asia Minor were drinking beer. So begins an account as entertaining as it is extensive, of alcohol's journey through worldOCoand, more important, AmericanOCohistory. In "The Spirits of America," Burns relates that drinking was the first national pastime, and shows how it shaped American politics and culture from the earliest colonial days. He details the transformation of alcohol from virtue to vice and back again, how it was thought of as both scourge and medicine. He tells us how the great American thirst developed over the centuries, and how reform movements and laws (some of which, Burn s says, were comic masterpieces of the legislator's art) sprang up to combat it. Burns brings back to life such vivid characters as Carrie Nation and other crusaders against drink. He informs us that, in the final analysis, Prohibition, the culmination of the reformers' quest, had as much to do with politics and economics and geography as it did with spirituous beverage. Filled with the famous, the infamous, and the undeservedly anonymous, "The Spirits of America" is a masterpiece of the historian's art. It will stand as a classic chronicleOCowitty, perceptive, and comprehensiveOCoof how this country was created by and continues to be shaped by its ever-changing relationship to the cocktail shaker and the keg."

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The First National Pastime
5
The General and the Doctor
45
The Father of Prohibition and Other Kinfolk
59
The Crusaders and their Crusades
97
The Importance of Being Frank
111
Hatchetation
127
The WheelerDealer and His Men
147
The Blues and How They Played
187
Executive Softness
225
The Hummingbird Beats the Odds
255
Strange Bedfellows
283
Acknowledgments
297
Notes
299
Select Bibliography
317
Index
323
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第 106 頁 - Father, dear father, come home with me now ! The clock in the steeple strikes two ; The night has grown colder — and Benny is worse—- But he has been calling for you.
第 77 頁 - Who hath woe ? who hath sorrow ? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause ? who hath redness of eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine ; they that go to seek mixed wine.
第 66 頁 - Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and in making crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles on which our government was founded.
第 65 頁 - It is true that even then it was known and acknowledged that many were greatly injured by it; but none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing.
第 11 頁 - If barley be wanting to make into malt, We must be contented and think it no fault ; For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.
第 185 頁 - . . . the reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile and children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.
第 65 頁 - When all such of us as have now reached the years of maturity first opened our eyes upon the stage of existence, we found intoxicating liquor recognized by everybody, used by everybody, repudiated by nobody. It commonly entered into the first draught of the infant and the last draught of the dying man. From the sideboard of the parson down to the ragged pocket of the houseless loafer, it was constantly found.
第 26 頁 - All the better, for our jurisdiction extends over so large a territory that the doctrine of chances makes it certain that it must be raining somewhere.
第 61 頁 - No member shall drink rum, gin, whisky, wine, or any distilled spirits, or compositions of the same, or any of them, except by advice of a physician, or in case of actual disease...
第 45 頁 - Drink is in itself a good creature of God, and to be received with thankfulness, but the abuse of drink is from Satan; the wine is from God, but the Drunkard is from the Devil.

關於作者 (2004)

Eric Burns is the host of "Fox News Watch" on the Fox News Channel. He was named by the Washington Journalism Review as one of the best writers in the history of broadcast journalism. His other books include Broadcast Blues and The Joy of Books.

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