In Tom Standage’s A History of a World in 6 Glasses(Ch. 1-4) takes on a journey to the past to reveal to us the great roles that beer and wine had on civilization. This book(Ch. 1-4) explores the time of the Stone age to the periods before and after the Roman Empire. This book reveals to us how beer and wine were used for cultural, social, political, and even medical purposes. Finally, Standage shows us how civilizations grew by the spreading of beer and wine, and how the spreading of these drinks spread culture around the world. To Standage beer and wine is a technology that played huge role in the developing and advancing civilization. In the introduction, Standage states that throughout history various drinks have/had such high significance …show more content…
He tells the story of King Ashurnasirpal II and his great ceremony. After winning a big military champaign and building a new capital city, he had a party with 69,574 guests, in which he served 10,000 jars of wine. Standage then talks about how wine was only for the privileged and wealthy, until wine met with greek culture. After wine was introduced to the greeks, wine became available to everyone because vineyard were grown everywhere. Greek wine was then exported throughout the world, which also allowed greek culture and thought to spread out through out the world. Greeks also had a method to drink wine. Before drinking any wine, it was mandatory that the wine was mixed with water so that the wine don’t make you lose your soberness. If this was not done, it was considered barbaric. Greeks said only their god Dionysus could drink wine just as it is. Wine was also the most important drink at symposiums. In symposiums men would drink wine, chat, and play a game called kottabos. Some guests had bad effects after drinking the wine and often these greek drinking parties would turn into huge fights or into orgies. Philosopher Eratosthenes wrote that the best place to discover the truth is at a symposium. He also declared that wine reveals what is