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Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization Kindle Edition

by Edward Slingerland (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 694 ratings
Editors' pick Best History
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An "entertaining and enlightening" deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization—and the evolutionary roots of humanity's appetite for intoxication (Daniel E. Lieberman, author of Exercised).

While plenty of entertaining books have been written about the history of alcohol and other intoxicants, none have offered a comprehensive, convincing answer to the basic question of why humans want to get high in the first place.

Drunk elegantly cuts through the tangle of urban legends and anecdotal impressions that surround our notions of intoxication to provide the first rigorous, scientifically-grounded explanation for our love of alcohol. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, Drunk shows that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers. Our desire to get drunk, along with the individual and social benefits provided by drunkenness, played a crucial role in sparking the rise of the first large-scale societies. We would not have civilization without intoxication.

From marauding Vikings and bacchanalian orgies to sex-starved fruit flies, blind cave fish, and problem-solving crows, Drunk is packed with fascinating case studies and engaging science, as well as practical takeaways for individuals and communities. The result is a captivating and long overdue investigation into humanity's oldest indulgence—one that explains not only why we want to get drunk, but also how it might actually be good for us to tie one on now and then. 

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    Little, Brown Spark
  5. Publication date
    June 1, 2021
  6. File size
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Drunk is one of those rare, enthralling books that is as entertaining as it is enlightening. Slingerland’s uproarious and erudite exploration of the history, anthropology, and science of intoxicants will revolutionize how you drink and think.”

“Does booze make us human? In this wide-ranging, provocative, and very funny exploration, Edward Slingerland makes an excellent case that intoxication is a powerful force for trust and love. From the first paragraph about the appeal of masturbation, Twinkies, and alcohol, to the rousing ending where Slingerland urges us to leave a place for ecstasy in our lives, Drunk is a delight.”

“Drunk is a punchy and stimulating intellectual cocktail that takes a fresh look at one of our species’ most puzzling obsessions—our routine consumption of sublethal dosages of a psychoactive poison. Despite a deep erudition that effortlessly weaves together history, anthropology, genetics, and chemistry, Slingerland’s book feels like a chat with an old friend over a couple of pints. You’ll learn a lot, but you won’t notice, because you’ll be so entertained.”

“To understand why people drink is to tap into the very core of human experience. Professor Slingerland seamlessly weaves together observations from a dizzying array of disciplines across the sciences and humanities. In so doing, he provides provocative insights regarding why we prize drinking and offers practical suggestions about how we might drink responsibly and better integrate drinking and nondrinking members of society. Read the first few paragraphs and you will immediately realize that you are in for a truly engrossing and delightful read! Read further and you also realize that you’re gaining a cutting-edge understanding of both the pleasures and the hazards of drinking. Slingerland has deftly managed to educate, surprise, and entertain while distilling a complex alcohol literature to address just why we humans drink to the point of intoxication.”

"Alcohol has been used and abused by more people in more places at more times than all other intoxicants combined. The story of drinking is, indeed, the story of humanity, and Edward Slingerland tells it with endearing wit, irreverence, wisdom, and profound insight. A brilliant and definitive book."

“Slingerland takes readers on an eminently enjoyable, irreverent, and informative romp through the world of intoxicants. He engagingly addresses the perplexing question of why the use of alcohol is so pervasive given its deleterious effects, and he deftly lays out the evolutionary advantages, from fruit flies to people, in clear, understandable language with examples that everyone can understand. Drunk is a milestone in the field of evolution."

"This book is a love letter to Dionysius. Even as it aroused memories of patients whose lives were ruined by alcohol, Drunk made me appreciate the value as well as the pleasure of drinking with friends, and of reading wonderful books.”

“Drunk induces a thrilling intellectual buzz. Edward Slingerland plunges his bar spoon into the rich ethnographic, archaeological, psychological, and historic literatures, stirs vigorously, and produces a cocktail of brilliant and novel insights about the role that alcohol played in the development of human civilization, and its continued importance today. He’s more entertaining than your typical bartender, and the drink he’s mixed is one we’ll be sipping, absorbing, and savoring for quite some time. Cheers!”

“Cooperation on a large scale is vital to the success of contemporary society. In this fascinating, funny and readable book, Professor Slingerland presents the case that alcohol is part of a cultural toolkit honed over thousands of years to help us all get along in a complex world. Drunk shines a new light on our love-hate relationship with booze.”

“Edward Slingerland has written a witty, wise, effervescent, and slyly irreverent examination of why humans seek intoxication. It’s a wide-ranging, deeply intellectual, and obsessively readable review of evolutionary psychology, cultural history, and human sociality that asks if to be human is to occasionally require a respite from being human, to experience the profound and ecstatic through ritual or chemical release. This sparkling chronicle belongs on the shelf of every thinking person who enjoys a drink from time to time.”

“A witty and well-informed narrator, Slingerland ranges across a wide range of academic fields to make his case. Readers will toast this praiseworthy study.”

About the Author

Edward Slingerland is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, with adjunct appointments in Psychology and Philosophy, as well as Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture and Director of the Database of Religious History. Slingerland is the author of Trying Not to Try, which was named one of the best books of 2014 by The Guardian and Brain Pickings and was the subject of a piece by John Tierney in the New York Times. He has given talks on the science and power of spontaneity at a variety of venues across the world, including TEDx Maastricht and two Google campuses, and has done numerous interviews on TV, radio, blogs, and podcasts, including NPR, the BBC World Service and the CBC.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08KQ18XLF
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown Spark (June 1, 2021)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 1, 2021
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 8804 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 406 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 694 ratings

About the author

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Edward Slingerland

Edward Slingerland

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I'm Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, and was educated at Princeton, Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. My areas of specialty include Chinese thought, comparative religion, cognitive science, and the relationship between the sciences and the humanities. In addition to academic journal articles in a wide range of fields, I've written several scholarly books, including What Science Offers the Humanities, Mind and Body in Early China, and a translation of the Analects of Confucius. My first book for a popular audience, Trying Not to Try, came out from Crown (Random House) in March 2014, and my second trade book, Drunk, was published by Little, Brown Spark in June 2021.

After living most of my life in the States (New Jersey, then California for 16 years), I'm now a U.S.-Canada dual citizen and live in Vancouver, although I still spend as much time as possible on the coast of Northern California.

You can find out more about my work and the various research projects that I'm involved in at my website: edwardslingerland.com

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
694 global ratings
must read for drinkers and open-minded non drinkers alike
5 Stars
must read for drinkers and open-minded non drinkers alike
A good book can take you to some unexpected places. Like the whiskey room with colorful beanbags and foosball tables at a giant tech company, for instance. When coders at Google hit a creative wall, they apparently, pop into this room on campus, but it is not a place to get drunk alone. In his fascinating new book Drunk, Edward Slingerland writes that such spaces that allow for both face-to-face communication – and easy access to alcohol – can act as incubators for collective creativity.... The book is not prescriptive in telling you how and when to consume alcohol to enjoy only its benefits. It does, however, tell you not to drink too many distilled spirits (wine or beer is better), and if possible, never, to drink alone.Ultimately, this heady book is an ode to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It does us all — drinkers and open-minded non-drinkers alike — a favor by talking a hard look at the merits of drinking, minus any squeamishness.
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Top reviews from the United States

Sarah Webb
5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating and pleasurable
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2022
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Slingerland makes a persuasive case for the usefulness of alcohol and its role through history and across cultures as a way for people to bond, to see things in a softer, less constrained way, and to access less rational aspects of the mind. As a person raised in a tee-totaller household with alcoholics in the close family, I have always drunk in a grudging, mostly abstinent way. It was a surprise to find that, for me, some of the role played by alcohol had been filled by other substances and particularly by religious practices. Slingerland gives good guidance on how we can avoid the downsides of drinking, but he shows the value of alcohol in a way I had never seen. I learned a great deal from this book about our society and about myself. And I am now often enjoying a beer or a glass of wine.
4 people found this helpful
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Ryan Boissonneault
4.0 out of 5 stars How Our Universal Love for Alcohol Led to the Rise of Civilization
Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2021
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People love to drink. More specifically, people love to drink or otherwise become intoxicated from all corners of the globe and in virtually every civilization throughout history. This underappreciated human universal—one that has surprisingly been ignored by most scholars—is practically begging for an evolutionary explanation. In philosopher Edward Slingerland’s latest book, Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization, we finally get one.

In this humorous and wide-ranging book, Slingerland explores the history, biology, psychology, and sociology of intoxication, and, in particular, the intoxicating effects of alcohol. He notes how, contrary to the popular view that drinking serves no useful evolutionary purpose—the equivalent of our brain hijacking our love for sugar to produce life-span-shortening twinkies—drinking actually facilitates social cooperation, and may even be responsible for the emergence of civilization itself.

The argument is quite extensive, but essentially goes like this: humans are a species of primate—which are in general selfishly individualistic—yet require massive levels of cooperation (found most prominently in insects) to survive, due to our unimpressively weak physical makeup. Thrown into the wild, a single human could never outcompete other animals, but in groups, we dominate the world. Humans have therefore come to occupy a very specific ecological niche that requires three things above all others: creativity, cultural learning, and cooperation.

Slingerland’s contention is that alcohol, along with other intoxicants (but primarily alcohol), works to enhance all three of these human necessities. Combining historical examples with modern research, Slingerland—formally trained in the history of religion and early Chinese thought—demonstrates how alcohol enhances creativity and openness to experience, reduces stress, improves mood, and facilitates cooperation, all by downregulating the prefrontal cortex and temporarily shutting down our overly-analytical minds.

Rather than an evolutionary mistake, then, alcohol is essential to the formation of the types of human bonds and large-scale cooperation necessary for survival. There’s even some evidence, as Slingerland describes, that the human discovery of brewing beer came before the invention of agriculture, for example in Göbekli Tepe. While the reader might sense some exaggeration here—in the absence of beer, agriculture and civilization probably still would have arisen—alcohol is nevertheless a critical social factor that has long been neglected.

This is all great news for wine and beer-lovers everywhere. In the debate over whether or how much we should drink, we can skip the disputes over the existence or not of minor health benefits if the act of becoming intoxicated is the key to the emergence of civilization and to the amplification of all the qualities that most make us human. This has the dual benefit of legitimizing our love for alcohol and also explaining its ubiquitous use.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. While alcohol has its place in the modern world, we would be unwise to ignore its costs. As Slingerland wrote, “The American Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that, from 2006 to 2010, excessive drinking led to 8,000 deaths annually, 2.5 million years of potential life lost, and $249 billion in economic damage.” When we drink alcohol, we are essentially ingesting a poisonous liquid neurotoxin that impairs our cognition, slows our reaction times, diminishes our judgments, and damages our livers, placing us at substantial risk. Weighed against the benefits, there’s some debate as to whether or not it’s all worth it in the end.

But the enormity of these costs only strengthens Slingerland’s main argument; if there were truly no benefits to drinking, biological or cultural evolution would have eliminated the practice long ago. It’s not just that we enjoy drinking for the sake of drinking (although this should count for something), but that the building of social solidarity and the enhancement of creativity are real and extensive benefits of intoxication that we would be equally unwise to ignore.

So, on the side of continued alcohol use is the fact that it is pleasurable, that it reduces stress, and that it is an evolutionarily beneficial way for us to enhance our skills in lateral thinking and social cooperation. On the side of abstinence is all of the associated health problems, risk of dependency, and economic costs of intoxication and excessive drinking. Both sides seem to have a strong case.

But by understanding alcohol’s deeper evolutionary function—and better delineating its benefits—we can not only understand its popularity but also recognize that alcohol is not simply an evil that we’re forced to tolerate, and that responsible, moderate, and social drinking may in fact lead to desirable benefits that far outweigh the costs.
33 people found this helpful
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Dorothea Leicher
5.0 out of 5 stars great balance
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2023
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The author treats his topic very thoroughly and appreciates the complexity of culturally pursuing a dangerous endeavor for its beneficial consequences. The arguments are convincing and consistent with evolutionary theories which emphasize our hypersociality that allowed us to supercharge our culture. The book should be read by all psychotherapists to appreciate the role of ecstasy in human functioning and go beyond simplistic assessments of good/bad evaluations which underestimate our complexity
7 people found this helpful
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IcanRunNow
5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, entertaining, fascinating, insightful, and very well researched/documented
Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2022
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Slingerland pulls together disparate fields of knowledge for a deeper understanding of how they are related. The research alone is astonishing. So glad I read this-- it's easily one of my favorites. I used bookmarks to flip back and forth to the notes (organized by chapter) that gave even more information, context, and insight.

Hidden gems for me include occasional digs at karaoke that made me laugh out loud.
3 people found this helpful
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PG
3.0 out of 5 stars A bit long and repetitive
Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2021
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Interesting topic but it seems to just make the same point over and over. A bit disappointing.
2 people found this helpful
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ThreeScorePlus
4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Fun to Read
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2022
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If you are looking for a reason for an occasional reverie, this book will provide several but it's not all frivolous. There is some serious science on offer to explain the origins, ubiquity and usefulness of alcohol and other mind-altering substances and practices (for example, trance inducing dancing) in human societies throughout the world and across time. Especially interesting is the discussion, woven through the book, on the theory that cultivating crops for fermenting alcoholic drinks was the reason humans took to agriculture over hunting and gathering.
5 people found this helpful
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home remodeler
5.0 out of 5 stars An unusual view of how alcohol has influenced mankind
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2022
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I found this to a very interesting book. Most of the book discusses many reasons why alcohol has been a desirable influence on mankind for thousands of years.

The last chapter is a scathing assessment of how modern society is abusing alcohol. The big change from being a good influence to a bad one was the invention of distillation and other high alcohol content beverages.
2 people found this helpful
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Roger Mortimer
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved this
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2023
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Well referenced discussion of the history of alchol and potential social benefit of drinking. Does balance the personal and societal prices of drinking as well.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Roger Larry
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read:smart funny and wise
Reviewed in Canada on August 6, 2022
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Well researched and argued defence of alcohol as a bringer of pleasure. He doesn’t gloss over the negatives but argues instead for mindful use.
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José Macaya
4.0 out of 5 stars Permite entender que la visión moralista racional tan vigente es muy incompleta.
Reviewed in Spain on April 24, 2023
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Muy interesante y lógica visión de la importancia del consumo de alcohol en el proceso de civilización de los humanos. Permite entender que la visión moralista racional tan vigente es muy incompleta. El análisis del impacto del alcohol abarca todas las civilizaciones de la antigüedad en todos los continentes, cada uno con su forma de hacer brebajes intoxicantes con los productos que tenían. Aunque, sin duda, hay inconvenientes de salud en el consumo de alcohol, por otro lado hay beneficios claros, científicamente demostrados, en creatividad, sociabilidad y capacidad de llegar a acuerdos.

A esos aspectos positivos del libro, debo contraponer que se hace largo y repetitivo. No todos los ejemplos que propone construyen por sobre los anteriores ya leídos. Al final se hace un poco pesado, sin que eso detraiga del mensaje bien armado del libro. Mi impresión es que podría haberse dicho lo mismo con 30-40% menos de texto.
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William Connors
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!
Reviewed in Germany on October 18, 2022
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Unbelievable how knowledgeable he is!. He draws on examples from all continents and almost all eras of history. A fantastic read that puts alcohol in a proper context. This book is extremely well researched and written. However, someone might tell him that kimchi does not refer to pickles, but to pickled, fermented foodstuffs.
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Fahmid
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 18, 2022
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A comprehensive historical and scientific account of how and why Homo sapiens use intoxicating substances since antiquity.
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Kindle Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Needs editing
Reviewed in Australia on July 14, 2021
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A lot of interesting information buried in an excess of verbiage. This book should have been edited down to about 50% of the current word count. I gave up reading half-way through because of the repetition and unnecessary text.
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