Kathleen Burke excavates the layers of civilization through a single, intoxicating lens. Wine: A Global History is an account of viticulture and fermentation as well as an exhaustive, breathtaking exploration of how deeply human culture is steeped in libation, proving that to understand wine is to understand the architecture of society, commerce, and art.
Burke, professor emerita of modern and contemporary history at University College London, traces wine's evolution from its accidental discovery in Neolithic clay jars through historical medicinal applications, and up to complex 21st-century global supply chains. She maps ancient trade routes across the Mediterranean, details the economic mechanics of monastic vineyards during the Middle Ages, and examines the political intrigues surrounding royal cellars. She explains how ancient Greeks and Romans routinely mixed their wine with seawater, lead acetate, or resin not merely for flavor but also as a method of preservation before temperature-control technology.
Burke uncovers the surprising role played by the Catholic Church as the primary steward of agricultural science during the chaos that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire; the church preserved grape clones through centuries of turmoil. She explores how the 19th-century phylloxera epidemic completely restructured the geopolitical and economic landscape of European agriculture, forcing nations to reinvent their industries from the root up.
Wine's central thesis is that culture is utterly and inextricably wine soaked. Burke illustrates how rituals, laws, and even spatial architectures, from the design of amphorae to the layout of modern vineyards, have been fundamentally shaped by humanity's enduring relationship with this beverage. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.