The intellectual, commercial and scientific revolutions of the Enlightenment were fueled by the buzz of coffee and cafes around Western Europe.   The machines of the industrial revolution in Britain were oiled with tea.  Beer helped build the Egyptian pyramids.   Or so says Tom Standage in his book A History of the World in Six Glasses.  

     This short, and easy to read book places importance on beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola in the major Western historical developments.  As someone used to reading all too often drab social, military, economic and political histories, I was pleased to have read such an engaging book.  

     First of all, what many of these beverages have in common is their antiseptic properties.  Coffee and tea of course need to be boiled for preparation, which helps kill off many of the harmful bacteria, making them safer to drink than untreated water.  In 18th and 19th century England, for instance, tea consumption helped reduce mortality rates from water-borne diseases, which in turn allowed more and more people to congregate into urban areas, which in turn helped provide the workforce for the Industrial Revolution.    Similarly, wine and beer in earlier times were also safer to drink than local water sources.

     The chapters on spirits and Coca-Cola are interesting in that we learn of those two drinks’ truly global reach, particularly in the American context.   In the early history of the United States and North America, rum was part of a tragic trading circle, where African slaves extracted sugar in the Caribbean, which was sent north to the British North American colonies to distill into rum, which was in turn used to buy more African slaves.   Meanwhile, starting in the early 20th century, and continuing into today, Coca-Cola has come to symbolize the economic and cultural imperialism of the United States.

     As I was reading through the book, I was thinking about possibilities and implications of water- especially bottled water – being the next defining beverage in humankind’s history.   Standage touches upon this idea in his epilogue.   He highlights the incredible growth of bottled water sales in developed countries and some intriguing findings (most bottled water is just as safe if not safer than treated water in developed countries), and he writes a bit of the lack of clean adequate water in so many many places around the world.  The author, however, does not attempt to solve the water issue, but instead leaves us with something to think about.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses, by Tom Standage. Published by Doubleday Canada, 2005. 311 pages.