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Why We Drink: The Surprising History of Modern Drinking Culture | Lisa Jacobson
Episode Description
Description
Wine with dinner. A beer after work. A whiskey to seal the deal. These rituals feel timeless, but they are far more recent than most Americans realize.
In this episode of The Clio Dialogues, historian Lisa Jacobson explains how the repeal of Prohibition did not automatically restore alcohol's place in American life. Instead, breweries, wineries, distillers, advertisers, cookbook authors, physicians, government officials, and even Hollywood spent decades reshaping public attitudes toward drinking and creating the modern ideal of the "responsible drinker."
In this episode
- The stigmas attached to wine, beer, and whiskey after Prohibition
- How advertisers launched massive "consumer re-education" campaigns
- Why moderation became the new ideal of drinking
- How World War II transformed America's drinking culture
- Cookbooks, rationing, and teaching Americans to cook with wine
- The campaign for the "right to pleasure" and the "right to decent whiskey"
- What Hollywood films reveal about
Featured Guest
Lisa Jacobson is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Buy the Book
Intoxicating Pleasures: The Reinvention of Wine, Beer, and Whiskey after Prohibition
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