A History Of The World In 6 Glasses Analysis

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In society there are many different types of power. Socially someone could be more influential than another person, physically someone could have the ability to lift more weight than another, politically some people’s beliefs and ideas are taken more seriously than others. Humans crave to possess some sort of power over something or someone. In the book A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage, he shows that the sources of power throughout history can be explained by whoever controlled the influx of certain drinks. The Arabs originally controlled the source of coffee and as the demand grew the pressure to keep the plant to themselves became more imperative. Rum, which is made from leftover molasses, was more easily obtained. The …show more content…

Rum was more easily obtained and could be made by the common person. Rum is made from molasses and as a result of who was able to control the molasses the more power that empire had. Rum was especially popular in the thirteen colonies amongst other places. Britain wanted to have a source of revenue from the colonies, so they tried to prohibit them from buying molasses from other sources, like France. Britain was not able to keep up with the supply and demand of rum, so as a result smuggling became socially acceptable. Britain imposed the Molasses Act on the colonies, which was supposed to make it so more sugar from the British Islands was being bought over the French. Though the Molasses Act was not effective the concept of being able to control how rum was traded was valued highly. The British tried to show the amount of authority they had over the colonists with imposing many different tariffs on them. People did not fight over who was able to control the intact of rum and the cultural effects of it, but the production. Colonist were beginning to realize that the people who they fell under jurisdiction were not best for the rise country. Without rum having enraged the americans the start of the revolutionary war would have happened at a later

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