My son Jedd mentioned the book A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage because he thought I’d like it. He’s right. What a fun concept: trace the history of civilization through the types of drinks that influenced that development. At first it sounded contrived to me, but as I thought about it … well, it really does make some sense.

Standage looks at six drinks: beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola. Three with alcohol, three with caffeine. Each represents a specific stage in the development of civilization, and the love for each has shaped human behavior. The obvious example is tea, the trade of which the British controlled for a century, and how the love for tea impacted geopolitics (think wars in China, the colonization of India, and of course that little event in Boston a couple hundred years ago).

Less obvious is the development of Coca-Cola, which was an ideal drink for the industrial society moving to mass consumerism. Easily manufactured, cheap, and simple to transport, Coca-Cola is the drink of choice around the world. Or consider coffee, which was sipped in thousands of London coffee houses during the Industrial Revolution and contributed to “clear thinking”.

If you have a love for any one of these drinks you’ll probably enjoy the book. Standage is a good writer who keeps the narrative moving along at a crisp pace. It might lack for deep insight into human development. But it will make you smile as you think about Assyrians drinking beer, Greeks drinking wine, pirates drinking grog, Englishmen drinking coffee, Colonialists smuggling tea, or Americans drinking Cola in far flung places around the world.

A fun book.