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Tags: history of

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  Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol

  by Iain Gately

  A spirited look at the history of alcohol from the dawn of civilization to the twenty first century For better or worse, alcohol has helped shape our civilization. Throughout history, it has been consumed not just to quench our thirsts or nourish our bodies but also for cultural reasons. It has been associated since antiquity with celebration, creativity, friendship, and danger, for every drinking culture has... (more)
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  Devil's Cup

  by Stewart Lee Allen

  In this captivating book, Stewart Lee Allen treks three-quarters of the way around the world on a caffeinated quest to answer these profound questions: Did the advent of coffee give birth to an enlightened western civilization? Is coffee, indeed, the substance that drives history? From the cliffhanging villages of Southern Yemen, where coffee beans were first cultivated eight hundred years ago, to a cavernous... (more)
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  Salt

  A World History

  by Mark Kurlansky

  Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World , here turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the... (more)
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  Catherine the Great : love, sex and power

  by Virginia Rounding

  Dutiful daughter, frustrated wife, passionate lover, domineering mother, doting grandmother, devoted friend, tireless legislator, generous patron of artists and philosophers—the Empress Catherine II, the Great, was all these things, and more. Her reign, the longest in Russian Imperial history, lasted from 1762 until her death in 1796; during those years she built on the work begun by her most famous predecessor,... (more)
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  Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street

  by Michael Davis

  The story of one of the most important and beloved shows on television—how it got started, nearly failed, and was saved by Elmo When the first episode aired on November 10, 1969, Sesame Street revolutionized the way education was presented to children on television. It has since become the longest-running children’s show in history, and today reaches 8 million preschoolers on 350 PBS stations and airs in 120... (more)
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  Diamond: A Journey to the Heart of an Obsession

  by Matthew Hart

  For centuries, diamonds have symbolized wealth, prestige and love; however, behind those symbols lies a world of deceit, monopoly and war. Hart follows the diamond trail around the globe, from the basement room where Gabi Tolkowsky, the world's greatest diamond cutter, faced the 599-carat Centenary diamond, to the fogbound smugglers' paradise of Africa's Diamond Coast. He records the heroic struggle of the... (more)
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  Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization

  by Iain Gately

  Tobacco was first cultivated and enjoyed by the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas, who used it for medicinal, religious, and social purposes long before the arrival of Columbus. But when Europeans began to colonize the American continents, it became something else entirely -- a cultural touchstone of pleasure and success, and a coveted commodity that would transform the world economy forever. Iain... (more)
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  Cannabis: A History

  by Martin Booth

  To some it's the classic "gateway drug," to others it is a harmless way to relax, or provide relief from pain. Some fear it is dangerous and addictive, while others feel it should be decriminalized. Whatever the viewpoint, cannabis incites debate at every level, and the effect it has on every corner of the globe is undeniable. In this comprehensive study, Martin Booth crafts a tale of medical advance and... (more)
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  The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket

  by Trevor Corson

  Everything you never knew about sushi—its surprising origins, the colorful lives of its chefs, the bizarre behavior of the creatures that compose it—is revealed in this entertaining documentary account by the author of the highly acclaimed The Secret Life of Lobsters . When a twenty-year-old woman arrives at America's first sushi-chef training academy in Los Angeles, she is unprepared for the challenges... (more)
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  Virgin: The Untouched History

  by Hanne Blank

  Why has an indefinable state of being commanded the attention and fascination of the human race since the dawn of time? In Virgin , Hanne Blank brings us a revolutionary, rich and entertaining survey of an astonishing untouched history.   From the simple task of determining what constitutes its loss to why it matters to us in the first place, Blank gets to the heart of why we even care about it in the first... (more)
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  The Hummingbird Cabinet: A Rare and Curious History of Romantic Collectors

  by Judith Pascoe

  "This book is . . . a romantic history of romantic collecting. It takes seriously, and by necessity shares, the tendency of romantic histories to dwell upon their own fragmentariness, on the impossibility of capturing an intact history. . . . It traces the particular ways in which objects stepped into the lives of romantic collectors, and also the ways in which the objects moved on."—from the Introduction In... (more)
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  The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History

  by Katherine Ashenburg

  The question of cleanliness is one every age and culture has answered with confidence. For the first-century Roman, being clean meant a two-hour soak in baths of various temperatures, scraping the body with a miniature rake, and a final application of oil. For the aristocratic Frenchman in the seventeenth century, it meant changing your shirt once a day and perhaps going so far as to dip your hands in some water.... (more)
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  Bonk

  The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

  by Mary Roach

  The best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and infectious wit on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex. The study of sexual physiology—what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better—has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James... (more)
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  I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage

  by Susan Squire

  A provocative survey of marriage and what it has meant for society, politics, religion, and the home. For ten thousand years, marriage—and the idea of marriage—has been at the very foundation of human society. In this provocative and ambitious book, Susan Squire unravels the turbulent history and many implications of our most basic institution. Starting with the discovery, long before recorded time, that sex leads... (more)