A History Of The World In Six Glasses Summary

World history has always been a series of cause and effect: a web that connects itself through different ideas, peoples, and inventions. Tom Standage in A History of the World in Six Glasses explores how one of those constantly evolving inventions is a common thread throughout all of human history – the invention of drinks. This book demonstrates how different kinds of drinks have affected world events through every social class. Although the idea of viewing history through the eyes of drinks does not seem like a common one, when one thinks about how drinks have pervaded through all aspects of society – social, political, and economical – and how they have provided a nuanced lens of history, it seems like an obvious way to inspect humanity’s past. Tom Standage successfully expresses his ideas without letting

By going chronological order, the audience can follow along and, by introducing a new perspective to history, the audience is engaged. Another tactic Standage uses is comparing and contrasting society’s reaction to different beverages. For example, coffee and tea were intellectual drinks because they helped people stay awake. However, alcohol caused people act less sensible. He also mentioned that every drink was used for medicinal purposes before becoming a social drink. This is one of the strongest points of the book – Standages ability to draw parallels between all the drinks. This way, the readers learned quite a bit about these drinks while still being able to follow along. It also reinforces previous facts about other drinks, causing audiences to have to always be in involved with the book. However, while the book was excellent, it was quite distant at times. This was most likely intentional, but I felt, sometimes, that I could not connect with the people of the society at the time. This is not necessarily a bad thing; for me, though, it was a