HIstory to the heart

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

by Tom Standage

Six drinks that changed the world--beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca Cola.  Who'd have thought it?

A lot of interesting history is crammed into this short book.  It's easy to read and only very occasionally skipped over a valley that I wished it had slogged through.  A couple of points to ponder:

- In the olden days, beer and wine were safer to drink than water. Coffee and tea, too, since they were made from boiled water. And I guess spirits mixed with water had a germ-killing effect.

- The history classes that they forced me to take in school completely downplayed the role of the East India Company in destroying Chinese civilization for years.  All I learned about trade patters was molasses--rum--slaves.  What about opium--gold--tea?

- Distilled wine was called aqua vitae and credited with magic powers. "It prolongs life, clears away ill humors, revives the heart, and maintains youth."  We feel sorry for those poor people, so desparate to clutch at any remedy for the mysterious diseases that wasted away their loved ones' lives. We think we're so much better off than they--we think medicine has conquered disease and can cure all harm...but how much like them we are at the end.  Still helpless before death; still looking for a  miracle cure.  And it isn't aqua vitae.