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A Social History of Alcohol and Other Drugs since 2000: Other Parts of the World

By David M. Fahey

Other Parts of the World

Outside of Europe and Latin America, varied publications have emerged since 2000 on the history of alcohol in other parts of the world. For coverage of Australia, Matt Murphy’s Rum provides a good general social history of alcohol in colonial Australia. Taking a slightly different approach, Under the Influence, by Ross Fitzgerald and Trevor L. Jordan, considers how alcohol has played a central role in relation to important events in Australian history.

Covering East Asia, several books consider China, including Derek Sandhaus’s Drunk in China, which by charts the long history of alcohol in China, focusing on its most famous liquor, baijiu. Other books focused on China include David A. Bello’s Opium and the Limits of Empire, which explores efforts to prohibit the drug between the eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, and James A. Benn’s Tea in China, which analyzes cultural and religious changes in China through the lens of tea. Turning to look at Japan, Jeffrey W. Alexander’s Brewed in Japan is a helpful history of the evolution of the country’s beer industry.

Turning to Southeast Asia, opium is a popular topic. Ashley Wright’s Opium and Empire in Southeast Asia examines the regulation of the drug by the British. Diana S. Kim’s Empires of Vice similarly considers the prohibition of opium but argues that it resulted from the efforts of colonial bureaucrats. Jiri Jakl’s volume Alcohol in Early Java treats the social and cultural significance of alcohol in Java before 1500 CE.

For South Asia, the collection A History of Alcohol and Drugs in Modern South Asia, from editors Harald Fischer Tiné and Jana Tschurenev, offers a comprehensive overview of the history of intoxicating substances, revealing the ways in which they are intertwined with the major events impacting the region. An Unholy Brew, by James McHugh, offers an earlier history, surveying alcohol in premodern India.

Two volumes treat the history of alcohol in North Africa and the Middle East. Rudi Matthee’s Angels Tapping at the Wine-Shop’s Door traces the history of alcohol in the Islamic world, providing an interesting counter narrative to most people’s understanding of alcohol as being expressly forbidden within Muslim-majority countries. Additionally, the collection Alcohol in the Maghreb and the Middle East since the Nineteenth Century, from editors Elife Biçer-Deveci and Philippe Bourmaud, unveils the complexities of debates over alcohol in the region, arguing that these tensions reveal more entrenched political and social power dynamics at play. Another book, Haggai Ram’s Intoxicating Zion, considers the social history of the illicit hashish trade in Mandatory Palestine and later Israel.

Works Cited