Thoughtful takes on drinking and its effects on people and their culture that give backstory are much needed because it is easy to just pick your side and your facts and your statistics and say “I am right.” Which is why I hope that Drinking in America, from author Susan Cheever can deliver on its promise in “taking a long, thoughtful look at the way alcohol has changed our nation’s history. This is the often–overlooked story of how alcohol has shaped American events and the American character from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.”
Somehow Cheever weaves together the Mayflower, slavery the McCarthy witch hunts, and the Kennedy assassination into her narrative to take stock of our love/hate relationship of alcohol.
The book is now on my to read list and I will review at a later date.