The most recommended books about drinking

Who picked these books? Meet our 17 experts.

17 authors created a book list connected to drinking, and here are their favorite drinking books.
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Book cover of The Politics of Wine in Britain: A New Cultural History

Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre Author Of Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine's New World

From my list on uncork the world of wine.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™m a historian who is endlessly curious about the past lives of the things that I love. My fondness for wine began when I lived in Paris after finishing my PhD, and it deepened when I taught in Cambridge and sampled my collegeā€™s vast cellar. My first books were on imperial history and this perspective made me wonder: was it a coincidence that New World wine producers are former European colonies? I spent a decade researching Imperial Wine, consulting archives in five countries, and proved that wine was an arm of colonial strategy. Iā€™m a Professor of History at Trinity College in Connecticut, USA, and I love teaching wine and history. 

Jennifer's book list on uncork the world of wine

Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre Why did Jennifer love this book?

Ludingtonā€™s book is exciting because it disproves pervasive ideas about wine consumption. One of the big assumptions in the history of commodities is that middle-class people want to imitate elites, and that taste trickles down the social ladder.

Ludington shows that the opposite was true 250 years ago in England and Scotland: aristocrats started changing their wine-buying habits to appear more sympathetic to the middling sort. This trickle-up is an eighteenth-century equivalent of affluent hipsters drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon or fashionistas buying $400 jeans.

Iā€™m the type of reader who finishes each sentence thinking yeah, but how do we know that?, so I find Ludingtonā€™s generous footnotes and detailed cellar inventories to be deeply satisfying. This is not an easy read, but itā€™s a thoroughly enriching one.   

By C. Ludington,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Politics of Wine in Britain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A unique look at the meaning of the taste for wine in Britain, from the establishment of a Commonwealth in 1649 to the Commercial Treaty between Britain and France in 1860 - this book provides an extraordinary window into the politics and culture of England and Scotland just as they were becoming the powerful British state.


Book cover of The Politics of Wine in Britain: A New Cultural History

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