John OBrien - States of Intoxication: The Place of Alcohol in Civilisation

This book provides an illuminating perspective on alcohol use, drawing on approaches from both anthropological research and historical sociology to examine our ambivalent attitudes to alcohol in the modern West. From anthropological research on non-Western, non-modern cultures, the author demonstrates that the use of alcohol or other psychoactive substances is a universal across human societies, and indeed, has tended to be seen as unproblematic, or even a sacred aspect of culture, often used in a highly ritualised context. From historical sociology, it is shown that alcohol has also been central to the process of state formation, not only as a crucial source of revenue, but also through having an important role in the formation of political communities, which frequently are a source of existential fear for ruling groups. Tracing this contradictory position occupied by alcohol over the course of history and civilisation, States of Intoxication sheds light on the manner in which it has produced the very peculiar modern perspective on alcohol.

John OBrien is a Lecturer in Sociology at Waterford Institute of Technology.

The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization

Breaking decisively with the often ideological and moralistic approach of treating problems of health and well-being as discrete and individual problems to be addressed in isolation both from one another and their broader social contexts, this series pursues the investigation of the ways in which contemporary malaises, diseases, illnesses and psychosomatic syndromes are related to cultural pathologies of the social body and disorders of the collective sprit de corps of contemporary society.

It avoids reductive psychological and biomedical understandings of pathologies including depression, stress-related illnesses, eating disorders, suicide and deliberate self-harm to focus instead on the socio-cultural contexts in which they occur, examining the radical changes to social structures and institutions, and the deep crises in our civilization as a whole to which such conditions are connected.

The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization thus welcomes manuscripts from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives across the humanities and social sciences sociology, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, politics, economics and cultural studies, as well as from the fields of medicine social care, therapeutic practice and the healing arts that explore the fruitfulness locating health and well-being not simply in the individual body or soul, but within a trans-disciplinary imagination that takes into account the integral human persons situatedness within collective social bodies, particular communities, entire societies, or even whole civilizations.

Series editors

Anders Petersen, Kieran Keohane and Bert van den Bergh

Late Modern Subjectivity and its Discontents

Anxiety, Depression and Alzheimers Disease

States of Intoxication

The Place of Alcohol in Civilisation

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/The-Social-Pathologies-of-Contemporary-Civilization/book-series/ASHSER1434

States of Intoxication

The Place of Alcohol in Civilisation

First published 2018

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

2018 John OBrien

The right of John OBrien to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Names: OBrien, John (Sociology lecturer), author.

Title: States of intoxication : the place of alcohol in civilisation / John OBrien.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Series: The social pathologies of contemporary civilization | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018002284| ISBN 9781138093607 (hbk) | ISBN 9781315106724 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Drinking of alcoholic beverages--Government policy. | Alcoholic beverages--Government policy.

Classification: LCC HV5081 .O63 2018 | DDC 362.292/561--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018002284

ISBN: 978-1-138-09360-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-10672-4 (ebk)

Above everyone else, the greatest debt in bringing this book to fruition is owed to Kieran Keohane, who has been a constant source of support, and inspiration. I am particularly grateful to all of those involved in all of the fun and stimulating symposia, and the communities that sustain them, that are the background to the book, from Allihies, Blackwater Castle, Florence, Acquapendente, to Lesvos. I am very grateful to all of those involved in International Political Anthropology, who have developed many of the concepts that are the foundation for this book, including Arpad Szakolczai, Agnes Horvath, Bjrn Thomassen and Harald Wydra. I would also like to give thanks to my colleagues in the Moral Foundations of Economy and Society Research Centre: Lorcan Byrne, Jill OMahony, James Cuffe, Ray Griffin and Tom Boland, as well as Manussos Marangudakis and Aleksandra Nesic from the Cultural Trauma summer school. The classes of Stephen Mennell, Tom Inglis and Kieran Allen in UCD, first exposed me to sociology, and their stamp is on this book too. The students of WIT have helped me a lot through their liveliness and attention, and by being able to bounce ideas off of them, over the years. I must single out Irena Loveikaite, Kirsty Doyle, David Dwyer and Kelly Fitzgerald in this regard. There are too many colleagues and friends that deserve thanks to mention them all. But I have to mention the following people: Paul Clogher, Jennifer OMahoney, Philip Cremin, Niamh Maguire, Jonathan Culleton, Michael Howlett, Richard Hayes, Samus Diollin, Jacinta Byrne-Doran, Amin Sharifi Isaloo, James Fairhead, Gerard Mullally, Tina Kinsella, Carmen Kuhling, Phil Brookes, Peter Fortune, Conor Cashman, Kevin OFarrell, Eimear Kellet, Adele McKenna, Sarah OFarrell, Shane Donnelly and Marie Power. Final thanks go to my parents, grandmother Anne, the OBriens, the McDonalds, Kavanaghs, Lynches, Mooneys and Healys, and Tony, Mary and Dermot, Niall, ine, Aisling and Conor, John, Marie, John and Eilish.