Why are we so ambivalent about alcohol? Are we torn between our love of a drink and the need to restrict, or even prohibit, alcohol? How did saloon culture arise in the United States? Why did wine become such a ubiquitous part of French culture? Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History examines these questions and many more as it considers how drink has evolved in its functions and uses from the late Middle Ages to the present day in the West. Alcohol has long played an important role in societies throughout history, and understanding its consumption can reveal a great deal about a culture. This book discusses a range of issues, including domestic versus recreational use, the history of alcoholism, and the relationship between alcohol and violence, religion, sexuality, and medicine. It looks at how certain forms of alcohol speak about class, gender and place. Drawing on examples from Europe, North America and Australia, this book provides an overview of the many roles alcohol has played over the past five centuries.

In the late fifteenth century, Burgundy was incorporated in the kingdom of France. This, coupled with the advent of Protestantism in the early sixteenth century, opened up new avenues for participation in public life by ordinary Burgundians and led to considerably greater interaction between the elites and the ordinary people. Mack Holt examines the relationship between the ruling and popular classes from Burgundy's re-incorporation into France in 1477 until the Lanturelu riot in Dijon in 1630, focusing on the local wine industry. Indeed, the vineyard workers were crucial in turning back the tide of Protestantism in the province until 1630 when, following royal attempts to reduce the level of popular participation in public affairs, Louis XIII tried to remove them from the city altogether. More than just a local study, this book shows how the popular classes often worked together with local elites to shape policies that affected them.

Traditional historiography has always viewed Calvin's Geneva as the benchmark against which all other Reformed communities must inevitably be measured, judging those communities who did not follow Geneva's institutional and doctrinal example as somehow inferior and incomplete versions of the original. Adaptations of Calvinism in Reformation Europe builds upon recent scholarship that challenges this concept of the 'fragmentation' of Calvinism, and instead offers a more positive view of Reformed communities beyond Geneva. The essays in this volume highlight the different paths that Calvinism followed as it took root in Western Europe and which allowed it to develop within fifty years into the dominant Protestant confession. Each chapter reinforces the notion that whilst many reformers did try to duplicate the kind of community that Calvin had established, most had to compromise by adapting to the particular political and cultural landscapes in which they lived. The result was a situation in which Reformed churches across Europe differed markedly from Calvin's Geneva in explicit ways. Summarizing recent research in the field through selected French, German, English and Scottish case studies, this collection adds to the emerging picture of a flexible Calvinism that could adapt to meet specific local conditions and needs in order to allow the Reformed tradition to thrive and prosper. The volume is dedicated to Brian G. Armstrong, whose own scholarship demonstrated how far Calvinism in seventeenth-century France had become divided by significant disagreements over how Calvin's original ideas and doctrines were to be understood.

This book is a 2005 edition of Mack P. Holt's classic study of the French religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Drawing on the scholarship of social and cultural historians of the Reformation, it shows how religion infused both politics and the socio-economic tensions of the period to produce a long extended civil war. Professor Holt integrates court politics and the political theory of the elites with the religious experiences of the popular classes, offering a fresh perspective on the wars and on why the French were willing to kill their neighbors in the name of religion. The book has been created specifically for undergraduates and general readers with no background knowledge of either French history or the Reformation. This edition updates the text in the light of new work published in the decade prior to publication and the 'Suggestions for further reading' has been completely re-written.

In the late fifteenth century, Burgundy was incorporated in the kingdom of France. This, coupled with the advent of Protestantism in the early sixteenth century, opened up new avenues for participation in public life by ordinary Burgundians and led to considerably greater interaction between the elites and the ordinary people. Mack Holt examines the relationship between the ruling and popular classes from Burgundy's re-incorporation into France in 1477 until the Lanturelu riot in Dijon in 1630, focusing on the local wine industry. Indeed, the vineyard workers were crucial in turning back the tide of Protestantism in the province until 1630 when, following royal attempts to reduce the level of popular participation in public affairs, Louis XIII tried to remove them from the city altogether. More than just a local study, this book shows how the popular classes often worked together with local elites to shape policies that affected them.

Written by an internatinal team of experts, this book takes a topical and thematic approach to French history from 1500 to 1660. Chapters focus on politics and the state, the economy, society and culture, religion, gender and the family, and France's overseas empire, and as a whole provide a coherent narrative of French history from the advent of the Reformation, through the civil wars of the second half of the sixteenth century, to the Fronde.

This book is a 2005 edition of Mack P. Holt's classic study of the French religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Drawing on the scholarship of social and cultural historians of the Reformation, it shows how religion infused both politics and the socio-economic tensions of the period to produce a long extended civil war. Professor Holt integrates court politics and the political theory of the elites with the religious experiences of the popular classes, offering a fresh perspective on the wars and on why the French were willing to kill their neighbors in the name of religion. The book has been created specifically for undergraduates and general readers with no background knowledge of either French history or the Reformation. This edition updates the text in the light of new work published in the decade prior to publication and the 'Suggestions for further reading' has been completely re-written.

From the beginning of the French Wars of Religion a small minority of toleration-minded Protestants and Catholics sought out a via media to end the civil wars which were destroying France. Later called politiques by their more zealous Catholic opponents, this group turned to François de Valois, duke of Alençon and Anjou in the 1570s, to champion their cause. Youngest son of Henry II and Catherine de Medici and heir to the throne himself after 1574, Anjou was also sought out by William of Orange and a similar group of politiques in the rebel provinces of the Netherlands, where the Dutch Revolt had virtually become a civil war. Anjou never became the saviour that either group had looked for, however. This book analyses why he nevertheless became the focus of such attention, and tries to explain why he never joined the politique struggle of the later sixteenth century.

Written by an international team of experts, this book takes a topical and thematic approach to French history from 1500 to 1648. Chapters focus on politics and the state, the economy, society and culture, religion, and gender and the family, and as a whole provide a coherent narrative of French history from the advent of the Reformation, through the civil wars of the second half of the sixteenth century, to the Fronde.

Why are we so ambivalent about alcohol? Are we torn between our love of a drink and the need to restrict, or even prohibit, alcohol? How did saloon culture arise in the United States? Why did wine become such a ubiquitous part of French culture?Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History examines these questions and many more as it considers how drink has evolved in its functions and uses from the late Middle Ages to the present day in the West. Alcohol has long played an important role in societies throughout history, and understanding its consumption can reveal a great deal about a culture. This book discusses a range of issues, including domestic versus recreational use, the history of alcoholism, and the relationship between alcohol and violence, religion, sexuality, and medicine. It looks at how certain forms of alcohol speak about class, gender and place.Drawing on examples from Europe, North America and Australia, this book provides an overview of the many roles alcohol has played over the past five centuries.