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Drunk - How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization (Hardcover)
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Drunk - How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization (Hardcover)
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While plenty of entertaining books have been written about the
history of alcohol and other intoxicants, none have offered a
comprehensive, convincing answer to the basic question of why
humans want to get high in the first place. Drunk elegantly cuts
through the tangle of urban legends and anecdotal impressions that
surround our notions of intoxication to provide the first rigorous,
scientifically-grounded explanation for our love of alcohol.
Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive
neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature,
and genetics, Slingerland shows that our taste for chemical
intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often
told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively
human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress,
building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely
tribal primates to cooperate with strangers. Our desire to get
drunk, along with the individual and social benefits provided by
drunkenness, played a crucial role in sparking the rise of the
first large-scale societies. We would not have civilization without
intoxication. From marauding Vikings and bacchanalian orgies to
sex-starved fruit flies, blind cave fish, and problem-solving
crows, Drunk is packed with fascinating case studies and engaging
science, as well as practical takeaways for individuals and
communities. The result is a captivating and long overdue
investigation into humanity's oldest indulgence - one that explains
not only why we want to get drunk, but also how it might actually
be good for us to tie one on now and then.
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