A History of the World in 6 Glasses summary

Wine is a widely affordable commodity in the modern world, and is enjoyed by the upper and lower classes alike. But this wasn’t always the case.

In the ancient world, wine was only available in small quantities and was expensive to transport, so only wealthy elites had access to it. The Assyrians, for instance, viewed wine as a symbol of prestige. In 870 BC, Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal made wine the drink of choice at a massive feast he held for the Empire’s elite, as it showcased his power to import the costly beverage from faraway lands.

Alcohol-producing technology continued to expand over the years and reached another milestone when people in the Arab world developed the distillation process. While the new spirits produced there didn’t gain much traction for religious reasons, they soon took hold in Europe.

For starters, Europeans believed that distilled wine had healing powers. Michael Salernus, an Italian alchemist, first experimented with the process after reading about the distillation of wine and salt in Arab texts from the twelfth century. Though the resulting spirit wasn’t very pleasant, it soon became regarded as a cure for a number of maladies, from heart diseases to paralysis.

In the Middle Ages, another game-changing drink was developed: coffee. While it first became popular in the Arab world, by the seventeenth century demand began to grow across Europe too.

Before coffee became widespread, it was common for Europeans to drink beer or wine throughout the day. Most drinking water was contaminated, so a glass of weak beer or wine was a safer bet.

Drinking tea is a well-known English tradition – but the English weren’t the first to introduce it to Europe. Tea came to Europe in the seventeenth century on trading ships from China.

China had long resisted trade with Europe as Chinese merchants felt they didn’t need European goods. But that changed in the mid-sixteenth century when they began to seek more silver and gold. China soon developed a trading relationship with Portugal, where they sent silk and porcelain, and later expanded their trade to other European nations.

By the eighteenth century, coffee was losing ground to tea in industrial workplaces like factories, as the British Empire continued to promote tea. As such, the rise of tea coincided with – and perhaps even drove – the Industrial Revolution.

Tea, like coffee, helped keep workers awake. But it had another benefit of its own: it reduced waterborne diseases because of its antibacterial properties. The industrial workers of Britain could now sleep in crowded living spaces without being so vulnerable to the spread of disease. In turn, more people could join the workforce, and more workers meant more factories.

About one century later, another groundbreaking drink emerged, this time in the United States: soda.

The British scientist and clergyman Joseph Priestley was the first to invent carbonized soda, after he discovered the process of dissolving gas into water.

Coca-Cola is now a major international brand, but it’s hard to imagine a product that’s more distinctly American. So how did it spread across the globe?

Coca-Cola began its international journey when the United States abandoned its policy of isolationism. Prior to the Second World War, the Coca-Cola company was much like the American government: it had little interest in expanding abroad.