Hopped Up: How Travel, Trade, and Taste Made Beer a Global Commodity (Jeffrey M. Pilcher)

The vast majority of countries have a go-to brand of beer that defines their palate. Heineken in the Netherlands, Budweiser (until recently) in the United States, Molson in Canada, and Corona in Mexico are several identifiable examples. All of these are lagers, most of them of the pilsner variety. The lager is arguably the most consumer variety of beer globally, and its spread from Central Europe to the rest of the world is a story of trade, globalization, and migration of people over centuries.

Jeffrey M. Pilcher’s Hopped Up: How Travel, Trade, and Taste Made Beer a Global Commodity is an ode to beer history. From its origins in Sumer and Egypt thousands of years ago to the variety of brewing traditions that grew over time, beer has had a long journey in evolution and in how it quenches thirst. Much of Pilcher’s book focuses on the spread of lagers and pilsners, but he spends a fair amount of time covering identifiable brands such as Guinness due to their contributions to global beer culture.

Pilcher focuses on the boom in craft brewing that took place over the past 30 years. Craft brewing is not just an American phenomenon, as Pilcher points out. The spread of hoppier, more bitter IPAs is mostly a product of America in recent years. However, the IPA is a throwback to the original English Pale Ale that dominated 18th and 19th Century tastes in the British Empire. 

Hopped Up is mostly an enjoyable read, although parts of the book (especially when the author drifts into social commentary) may not leave a pleasant aftertaste with a beer aficionado.

MY RATING: 4

Italy in a Wineglass: The Story of Italy Through Its Wines (Marc Millon)

Italy’s historic contributions to human civilization cannot be understated. One of those contributions is its winemaking. Marc Millon’s Italy in a Wineglass: The Story of Italy Through Its Wines is a journey through most of Italy’s regions, highlighting a historic event or contribution made in that portion of the world, as well as the various modern wines of today that either pay homage to history or are grown near some of those historic sites and events.

Mark Millon travels the country, offering snapshots of Italian history and culture from Sicily to South Tyrol, including alpine and volcanic stories and wines along the way. The best parts of the book feature historical relevance or, as a foodie, the ever-present discussion of bread, cheese, and other charcuterie.

Italy In A Wineglass is a joy to read and will make you hungry and thirsty to not only know more about Italy, but to have a glass of wine and a nice piece of Tuscan bread while doing so.

MY RATING: 4

Money: A Story of Humanity (David McWilliams)

Money is the tie that binds societies together. The means of exchanging something of value for goods or services, money has been around since its initial introduction in Mesopotamia some 5,000 years ago. Even earlier, the first means of indicating owed debts goes back almost 20,000 years to the Congo. Since these rudimentary beginnings on clay tablets and notches into bones, money has evolved dramatically to the form that we see today with coins, bitcoins, paper currency, and more. 

Money: A Story of Humanity is as much a history of currency and economics as it is humanity.  Author David McWilliams chronicles the rise of financial systems, the items that backed finance, and the evolution of how humans use money to buy and sell items, as well as to hold onto assets. The reader learns how money fueled not just economic growth and advancement but also warfare. McWilliams also includes humorous stories of how money has been expressed in architecture and art, along with how greed fueled speculative practices and economic calamity. 

In essence, Money is a journey of us over the past centuries and how cash, or currency, or cryptocurrency rules everything around us whether we like it or not. McWilliams’s book is informative, entertaining, and fast-paced. 

MY RATING: 4.5

A Hell of a Storm: The Battle for Kansas, the End of Compromise, and the Coming of the Civil War (David S. Brown)

1854 was a momentous year in America, marked notoriously by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The legislation declared that territories west of the Mississippi River could allow slavery if their residents and respective territorial legislatures voted for it. This bill wiped clear a generations-old truce of sectional compromise within the American government that first started with the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The bill’s author, Stephen Douglas, remarked at the time of drafting the legislation that the bill’s opposition, primarily from Yankee abolitionists, “will raise a hell of a storm.” David S. Brown, author of A Hell of a Storm:The Battle for Kansas, the End of Compromise, and the Coming of the Civil War, wryly noted in reply to Douglas’s quote “and so it did.”

This book is a walk through a stormy year in American life. The Kansas-Nebraska Act effectively killed one political party, birthed its replacement, and drove the longstanding dominant party in American politics into a minority status that took generations for it to exit fully from. The Underground Railroad was in full transit, helping Blacks escape slavery through the work of Harriet Tubman and others. 1854 also was marked by the conclusion of the Exhibition of Industry of All Nations, a World’s Fair held in Manhattan, as well as the opening of Japan to American trade. The year also included the death of the last of the founding mothers (a spouse of one of the Founding Fathers) of the United States. Abraham Lincoln found his political voice and an aspirant to the White House, Stephen Douglas, effectively lost his over the course of this important year.

A Hell of a Storm is a fast-paced trip through a year that changed much of America’s trajectory, sending it quickly towards a Civil War that would soon kill hundreds of thousands of American men in a few years’ time. 

MY RATING: 4.5

The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity (Timothy C. Winegard)

Horses have powered, sustained, and helped human civilization for millenia. From the first domestication over 5,000 years ago, horses have been steadfast travel companions and driven economic growth. However, the horse’s journey through our civilization is equally a trip through our technological and even entertainment development.

Timothy C. Winegard’s The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity describes the horse’s past from wild, untamed beast that roamed grasslands around the world to a means of transportation, growth and expansion to a tool for fighting battles against enemies. Nations desired horses to help them develop. Societies relied on them to help till the soil, ship goods, and so much more. Winegard does a masterful job tethering the growth of humanity to the horse, showing how the world became more interconnected and economically empowered thanks to the horse’s reliability. The author also discusses wild and feral horses and how they impacted (or sustained) ecosystems in various parts of the world.

The Horse is as much a gallop through human history as it is a story of horse evolution over the past 5,000 years. Winegard’s storytelling of our interaction with these horses through good times and bad is well-researched and very effective.

MY RATING: 5

The Newsmongers: A History of Tabloid Journalism (Terry Kirby)

The British press has quite the history for breaking scandals and significant stories, pushing boundaries and finding itself often in the crosshairs of the public and British government for how it pursues a lead. Terry Kirby accounts the history of the (mostly British) tabloid press in Newsmongers: A History of Tabloid Journalism.

Kirby’s account is roughly 90% the history of British journalism, with the remaining 10% devoted to the American press. Within that 90%, much covers the rise of newspapers and eventually tabloid news as a main source of information for Brits. Rupert Murdoch gets plenty of coverage , along with the various scandals his newspapers produced over his years of owning media outlets in the UK.

The Newsmongers is a fast-paced account of British press, at times a dizzying account of figuring out news and their associations to various outlets. As an American, I was at times trying to make heads of which scandal was tied to which publisher or which paper since I only had some basic background on how British tabloid journalism operated. However, the book’s frenetic pace is somewhat symbolic in some quarters of journalism: fast-paced and frenetic. 

MY RATING: 4

Why War? (Richard Overy)

Conflict between humans has been a natural part of history for millenia, going back to our Neanderthal cousins in Ice Age times. Why humans would fight each other, whether it be with rocks and sharp tools or missiles and mustard gas, is a question that has stumped sociologists and historians. It seems that war and conflict will be a part of future stories of humankind as long as we exist.

Richard Overy, a historian known for World War II research, tackles the central question of the aptly titled book Why War?. Overy answers the question through eight different topics - a range of physiological, environmental, and sociological categories that show why people fought people, tribes fought tribes, and states fought states throughout recorded history. While the book is not a comprehensive account of warfare in the classic sense, it does discuss different examples to showcase each of the eight topic areas, including examples from Asia, Africa, and the Americas before European settlement.

Why War? is a book that will not provide answers to how to prevent future war from occurring. However, it does provide a smart, thoughtful analysis of the elements of human nature that drive some of us, as well as those who lead us to violence as a means of survival.

MY RATING: 5