The Politics of Wine in Britain : A New Cultural History

A unique look at the meaning of the taste for wine in Britain, from the establishment of a Commonwealth in 1649 to the Commercial Treaty between Britain and France in 1860 - this book provides an extraordinary window into the politics and culture of England and Scotland just as they were becoming the powerful British state. Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Introduction....Pages 1-12 Front Matter....Pages 13-13 “A Health to our Distressed King!”....Pages 15-30 “What’s become of rich Burdeaux claret, who knows?”....Pages 31-45 “The Cross ran with claret for the general benefit”....Pages 46-57 Front Matter....Pages 59-59 “The interest of the nation lay against it so visibly”....Pages 61-81 “A good and most particular taste”....Pages 82-103 “Firm and erect the Caledonian stood”....Pages 104-118 Front Matter....Pages 119-119 “Port is all I pretend to”....Pages 121-143 “Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men”....Pages 144-162 “That other liquor called port”....Pages 163-179 Front Matter....Pages 181-181 “By G–d, he drinks like a man!”....Pages 183-220 “Happily, inebriety is not the vice of the age”....Pages 221-237 “Taste is not an immutable, but a mutable thing”....Pages 238-256 Back Matter....Pages 257-354 As a potent symbol of political legitimacy and a leading source of government revenue, wine in England and Scotland was a commodity like no other. This fascinating study shows how the taste for wine both reflected and constructed political power during the two most important centuries of modern British history. Wine, and how one consumed it, was never neutral; instead, it was inextricably linked to political party, social class, national identity, and gender. Wine was thus essential to creating modern Britain