Spirits
From miracle medicine to The American Revolution, this drink has made an appearance in many events throughout history. Old-World inhabitants consumed spirits back then just how modern day Americans consume coffee. As Tom Standage states in his novel A History of the World in 6 Glasses spirits “helped to shape the modern world by helping the inhabitants of the Old World to establish themselves as the rulers of the New World”. Spirits had the most impact on the world as it strongly influenced multiple countries in the past including the United States, England, and medieval Spain.
Spirits were introduced by the Arabs around the fourth millennium BCE by boiling wine and making “distilled wine” or modern-day brandy. During this time the
Coffee increases awareness, and gives you energy. Also, the production cost of coffee was lower than the production cost of alcohol.
1. From which advanced civilization/culture did Europeans get the “science” of how to make spirits?
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.
1) From which advanced civilization did Europeans get the ‘science’ of how to make spirits?
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.
Within the final six chapters of A History of the World in Six Glasses written by Tom Standage, the role of coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola in modern history is discussed. Standage argues that each of the beverages have their own role in the economics, politics, and social issues of the time period they became popular. “Europe began to emerge from an alcoholic haze that had lasted for centuries” (Standage, 136). In the 17th century alcohol became a less popular beverage, while coffee emerged as the new popular beverage of the time.
As we read The History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage, we see the massive impact that certain drinks had on history. These drinks could do everything from controlling trade to influencing government. Their power was endless for one sole reason: demand. All three of these commodities caused major shifts in power. Each of the drinks presented a different type of power. Rum influences the pattern of trade, coffee enhanced the power of intellect, and tea worked with politics to create a in shift power. All three of these powers are important in world history and still have an effect on the world today.
Why was it so important to Europe 's development that many people 's beverage of choice switched from alcohol to coffee?
The exact time when beer was created is unknown, but was common in the Near East by 4000 BCE. With the discovery of beer, came an increase in the importance of cereal grains, and the argument that the discovery is a key factor in society’s adoption of agriculture, the point at which history begins approach modern times. One of the explanations for this change is, “once beer had been discovered, and its consumption had become socially and ritually important, there was a greater desire to ensure the availability of grain by deliberate farming” (Standage 21). The next drink Standage decided was a significant piece of history was wine, which is presented through a review of early Greece and Rome. An important point that Standage noted was the apparent split in social classes seen with the introduction of wine. “At the time, one shekel of silver per month was regarded as the minimum wage, so wine could only have become an everyday drink among the very rich” (Standage 50). In addition, wine was also associated with religion, long distance trading, and geography. Standage moves on to the colonial period using spirits as vessel through which to discuss the era. Connections from spirits are made to exploration, the slave trade, and the American revolution. Standage makes the case that spirits was the first globally ubiquitous drink that affected many aspects at the time. “Unlike beer, which was
The Spirits That Lend Strength Are Invisible II (Meteor Extraterrestrial Material) by artist Sigmar Polk is 158 in. by 118 in., or approximately 13 feet high by 10 feet wide. The painting takes up much of the gallery wall, reaching almost to the ceiling, and the scale of the artwork encourages the viewer to walk around the gallery floor to see it from different angles in order to be able to see the entire piece. The artwork is on canvas, and the canvas is mounted directly on the wall, with no frame around the work. The subject matter of the artwork is nonobjective; it is completely abstract. The mixed media artwork is composed of artificial resin and meteoric granulate. No part of the canvas has been left unpainted by the resin, which has a
The improvement of medicine over the course of the human successes gave great convenience to the people of today. Science has cured and prevented many illnesses from occurring and is on its way to cure some of the most dreadful and harmful illnesses. As the world modernizes due to the industrialization, so does the ways of medicine. Some cures are approached by chance, some, through intense, scientific measures.
Much of The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende revolves around the life of one of its main characters Esteban Trueba. Esteban Trueba is an aggressive, violent character whose only goals throughout the novel are to achieve success and power. The reader sees his brutal nature through the way he deals with people around him, whom in his eyes are all significantly inferior. However, one minor character in The House of the Spirits seems to change Trueba’s aggressive nature. When Esteban first meets Transito Soto, she is a prostitute in a brother nearby to his farm in Tres Marias. However, she soon proves much more worthy. What may seem like an insignificant meeting at first turns out to affect his life over and
Wine has been a part of Western history since the Neolithic Period (8,500-4,000 B.C.), when cultures first started to develop permanent communities, and stopped being nomadic hunter-gatherers (U. Penn, 2000). One of the earliest written records of the consumption of wine is recorded in the Bible and the impact of wine on Mediterranean cultures became more pronounced over the years as the geopolitical situation stabilized in the region under the Roman Empire. Roman Imperialism helped to spread the production of wine across most of the countries in the Empire, which included most of North Africa and Southern Europe (Britannica, 2000). During that same era, wine became ingrained in the Christian faith and is still used in Christian mass today. The close tie between wine and the Christian faith aided to the spread of wine production and wine consumption across Europe
The beginning of the nineteenth century was also the start of a legendary movement in literature, known as Romanticism. Authors during this period created their own worlds by using their imaginations. Individuals no longer saw themselves a measure of everything around them, but rather as one more component of the great source of life and creativity: nature. The Romantics placed emphasis on emotions such as apprehension, terror, and awe as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, as well as the feelings that accompany confronting the sublimity and beauty of nature, especially. Supernatural elements are not present in all Romantic literature; however, the supernatural approach was an important and arguably crucial strategy for Romanticism to achieve its purposes.
3.) How did spirits help in the building and shaping of early America (politically and