I overheard tonight at the
MIT Muddy that beer was supposedly the central catalyst getting humans to civilize -- that is, settling, cultivating, and urbanizing. At first blush, very humorous. Inebriation = Civilization! But a quickie search reveals no less than George Wills on the
Survival of the Sudsiest where he salutes the saving graces of tasty brews...
"The development of civilization depended on urbanization, which depended on beer. To understand why, consult Steven Johnson's marvelous 2006 book, "The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic -- and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World." It is a great scientific detective story about how a horrific cholera outbreak was traced to a particular neighborhood pump for drinking water. And Johnson begins a mind-opening excursion into a related topic this way: "The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply. The solution was to drink alcohol."
I personally suspect that the tasty additional qualities of beer had a lot to do with its "rapid adoption" and, indeed, inspired many hunters to shift to farming;-) Especially precious is Wills' closing comments...
"...the good news is really good: Beer is a health food. And you do not need to buy it from those wan, unhealthy-looking people who, peering disapprovingly at you through rimless Trotsky-style spectacles, seem to run all the health food stores. So let there be no more loose talk -- especially not now, with summer arriving -- about beer not being essential. Benjamin Franklin was, as usual, on to something when he said, "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
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