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History Of The World In Six Glasses Essay

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Water is believed to be the most quintessential and contributing drink towards the progress of the human race. While that may be the case, water was aided by many beverages that were developed over time. People were destined to eventually make, invent, find or discover these universal beverages, as described in A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage. He writes about six different beverages: beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola, which were all blown up to influence lifestyles, customs, cultures and more. While the six important beverages have not necessarily had a positive influence, they still demonstrate the different themes that define the progress of world history. One of these themes is the interaction between …show more content…

At the same time, it shows how the world progresses. For example, wine was thought to be a drink for the noble and for the mighty; only high-ranking members of the hierarchy were able to drink wine, such as educated men in Greek symposiums. Soon enough, wine became more available and was then drunk by the masses, instead of beer; even slaves ended up drinking wine. However, wine still made the clear distinction between those who were powerful and those who were not—the most prestigious individuals drunk the rarest and heaviest wines while the least prestigious such as the slaves drunk light and putrid wine. This shows the development of social structures and the progress of history as there were now clearly-marked different social classes that would influence the world for years to come. I decided to choose this example because I always thought that the drinking of wine meant one was wealthy, but I found out it was more influential than I thought, and although it was drunk by the wealthy, it was also quite omnipresent among different

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