Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of ReasonRotgut gin—cheap, widely available, and remarkably potent—was the overwhelming drug of choice among London's working poor in the early 1700s. Sold for pennies in taverns and squalid gin shops, on street corners and even in jails, gin was the original opiate of the masses, plunging England's capital into chaos and giving rise to the first modern drug scare. Craze is an engaging social history of gin and the men and women whose lives it touched: the poor who drank it, the distillers who made it, the members of Parliament who feared it, and the prime minister who relied on its tax revenues to line his pockets. Offering a rich political, social, and economic history of gin and the London of Hogarth and Dr. Johnson, Craze will intoxicate you with its blend of erudition, style, and wit. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - JBD1 - LibraryThingFor the most part, a fine example of good history written for a popular audience. Jessica Warner examines the so-called "gin craze" period, which in England lasted, she suggests, from roughly 1720 ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - usnmm2 - LibraryThingA interesting social history of the"gin craze" of the early 1700's and the various "Gin Laws" passed by Parliment from 1729 till 1751. Sometime humrous, sometimes sad, sometimes the reading is a bit 'dry' (;D) but on the whole an educational and interesting read Read full review
Contents
Introduction I | 1 |
ActI IN WHICH A NEW AND BEWITCHING LIQUOR | 23 |
Actll IN WHICH VIRTUE | 133 |
Copyright | |
3 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
addition April beer beverage bill brandy Cambridge capital century commissioners of excise Company of Distillers constables consumption convicted Corporation of London Court Croft Daily Gazetteer distilled spirits Distilled Spirituous Liquors drank gin drinking drugs drunk East London Eighteenth-century Elizabeth England English Excise Office excisemen February Frank Ivis gallons Geneva Gentleman's Magazine Gin Act gin craze gin shops gin-sellers hawkers Henry Fielding house of correction infant informers January John Joseph Jekyll justices later license Liquors the Bane London Company London Daily Post London Evening-Post London Metropolitan Archives Lords March Middlesex Mother Gin Nation Norwich Mercury October ofthe Old Bailey parish Parliament political poor Printed prison prosecutions Public Record Office publicans Read's Weekly Journal retailers riots sales of gin selling gin Sessions Papers Sir Robert Walpole social Society sold gin Southwark Street taxes Thomas De Veil Thomas Wilson took effect trade University Press Warner wholesale distillers William woman women
Bibliographic information
| Title | Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason |
| Author | Jessica Warner |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003 |
| Original from | Pennsylvania State University |
| Digitized | 5 Jan 2011 |
| ISBN | 0812968999, 9780812968996 |
| Length | 267 pages |
| Subjects | › › › History / Europe / Great Britain / General History / Modern / 18th Century |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |