Last saved by: Elsayed Ahmed

Questions Based on
Standage, A History of the World in Six Glasses and
Deutsch, Labor Histories of Food
1. Who are Tom Standage and Tracey Deutsch?  What are their professions and research backgrounds?  What other works have they produced?  What are the authors’ biases (if you detected any)?  
2. According to Deutsch, what can we learn about food and its history through the lens of labor?  Provide ample evidence to support your response. 
3. What is Standage’s thesis?  What does Standage mean when he says, "Understanding the ramifications of who drank what, and why, and where they got it from, requires the traversal of many disparate and otherwise unrelated fields: the histories of agriculture, philosophy, religion, medicine, technology, and commerce" (5, 6)?
4. What role did labor play in the production, circulation, and consumption of each the six beverages Standage researches?  How was this labor gendered, if at all?
5. Bringing Laudan, Sharma, Deutsch, and Standage into conversation with one another, explain how, “The story of tea is the story of imperialism, industrialization, and world domination, one cup at a time” (Standage, 177).  Draw on what you learned from reading Laudan, Sharma and Deutsch to answer this question.  
6. Can the same be said for the other beverages Standage writes about?  That is, are the histories of beer, wine, spirits, coffee and coca-cola also stories of imperialism, industrialization, and globalization?  If so, which ones and how?
7. According to Standage, what role did the Enlightenment play in the history of the beverages discussed?
8. What role did the Temperance movement play in the evolution of the six beverages covered?
9. Standage concludes with an epilogue that is primarily about water. If the book, published in 2005, was revised in 2020, would water play a more significant role in the story?  Explain.
10. Briefly discuss three things you learned from the readings that surprised you , two questions you have about the readings, and one way the readings have changed/challenged/broadened your perspectives.