Humans have had a complicated history with wine for thousands of years. It has been a banal item in the daily diet and treated as a liquid treasure. It has been venerated as a gift from the gods and cursed as threat to social order. It has been considered healthy to drink as well as hazardous to health. In 9000 Years of Wine, Rod Phillips surveys this long story and places wine in the broad sweep of history. He shows how it has been linked to big social, cultural, and economic swings, how ...

Whether as wine, beer, or spirits, alcohol has had a constant and often controversial role in social life. In his innovative book on the attitudes toward and consumption of alcohol, Rod Phillips surveys a 9,000-year cultural and economic history, uncovering the tensions between alcoholic drinks as healthy staples of daily diets and as objects of social, political, and religious anxiety. In the urban centers of Europe and America, where it was seen as healthier than untreated water, alcohol...

A sweeping and fascinating history of cat-human relationships.For more than 10,000 years, cats have prowled at the edges of human life. But, starting only a few decades ago, hundreds of millions of them became pets. In Cats, Rod Phillips shares a sweeping cultural and social history of felines, tracing their shifting place across societies and centuries, from ancient Egypt's revered hunters to Europe's suspected familiars of witches and from shipboard rode...

"A fascinating book that belongs on every wine lover’s bookshelf."—The Wine Economist"It’s a book to read for its unstoppable torrent of fascinating and often surprising details."—Andrew Jefford, DecanterFor centuries, wine has been associated with France more than with any other country. France remains one of the world’s leading wine producers by volume and enjoys unrivaled cultural recognition for its wine. If any wine r...

Wine has been made commercially in Canada since the mid-1800s but Canadian wine has only really begun to register with professionals and consumers outside the country in the last few decades, as quality has dramatically improved. Canadian wine is now being exported in meaningful volumes to the USA, Asia and Europe and since the beginning of this century the number of wineries has increased more than 250 per cent. In recent years wine regions have been demarcated (with some divided into sub...

Overwhelmed when you walk into the local wine store?Just trying to find that special gift for that special occasion?Looking for the perfect pairing for tonight's dinner?Or are you just tired of the same ol' same ol'?Let Rod Phillips, Canada's trusted wine expert, show you the way. With over 500 domestic and international wines categorized by vintage, appellation, alcohol content, price range, taste description — and Phillips' authoritative quality ratings syste...

The Midwest has produced a robust literary heritage. Its authors have won half of the nation's Nobel Prizes for Literature plus a significant number of Pulitzer Prizes. This volume explores the rich racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the region. It also contains entries on 35 pivotal Midwestern literary works, literary genres, literary, cultural, historical, and social movements, state and city literatures, literary journals and magazines, as well as entries on science fiction, film...

Wine: A social and cultural history of the drink that changed our lives is a wine history with a difference. Most histories of wine (like Hugh Johnson’s The Story of Wine, Paul Lukacs’s Inventing Wine, and Rod Phillips’s own A Short History of Wine) are chronological narratives that begin with wine in the ancient world and run through to modern times. Wine has been seen typically as the subject of broader historical trends and events – how, for example, economic and diplomatic conditions f...

"An excellent study that should interest film buffs, academics, and non-academics alike" ( Journal of the West).Hollywood's West examines popular perceptions of the frontier as a defining feature of American identity and history. Seventeen essays by prominent film scholars illuminate the allure of life on the edge of civilization and analyze how this region has been represented on big and small screens.Differing characterizations of the fr...

NATIONAL BESTSELLERNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERRenowned activist and public intellectual David Graeber teams up with professor of comparative archaeology David Wengrow to deliver a trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution--from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state," political violence, and social inequality--and revealing new possibilities for ...

A Quote A Day for Writers: 365 Quotations on the Art, Craft, Humor, Heartbreak, Joys and Magic of WritingThe monthly series - now collected in one volume!January—Getting StartedFebruary—Writing is WorkMarch—Writing is LifeApril—A Writer is a ReaderMay—The CraftJune—The WordsJuly—The CharactersAugust—Stumbling BlocksSeptember—Silence & SolitudeOctober—Mystery & MagicNovember—The Hu...