Ron --
   It may well be -- I don't remember.  I remember it struck me as ironic (and then I saw the point) that a paper about German dialect variations was the only one in the Rororo book in English.  
     Incidentally, if the student is interested in going back earlier, there might be quite a bit to be done about alcohol and the Reformation in Germany.  Calvin ended up with quite a rigorous control of intoxication in Geneva (I came across a paper in the local history journal there [in French] about 15 years ago analyzing court proceedings on intoxication), and it would be interesting to know if that was true in Emden, too, for instance. Luther castigated the "abuse of eating and drinking which gives us Germans a bad reputation in foreign lands", observing that "the Italians call us gluttonous, drunken Germans and pigs because they live decently and do not drink until they are drunk. Like the Spaniards, they have escaped this vice". A few decades later, the English traveler Fynes Morison was quite struck with the intoxication in some German towns: "let the Germans pardon me to speak freely ... To their drinking they can prescribe no meane mor end".  As the town gates in Saxony were being shut at night, he noted, the homeward bound "reele from one side of the streete to the other.... For howsoever the richer sort hide this intemperance for the most part, by keeping at home, hsurely the vulgar yield to this daily spectacle".  [These quotes are from Greg Austin, Alcohol in Western Society from Antiquity to 1800: A Chronological History.  Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio Information Services, 1985.] 
     What did the German Counter-Reformation think about alcohol?  Did the Lutherans and the Calvinists agree or disagree on how bad drunkenness was?  Where did the radical Reformation stand on this?...
     All of this, of course, was before spirits had really taken hold, so at that time we are mostly talking about beer, along with some wine and mead.  Robin 

-----Original Message-----
From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ron Roizen
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 1:40 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: German diversity

Robin,  Was that the same paper as in Spradley's CULTURE AND COGNITION?  Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robin Room
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 1:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: German diversity

David --
   He might also look at: Gisela Völger & Karin von Welck, eds., Rausch und
Realität: Drogen in Kulturvergleich. 3 vols. Reinburg bei Hamburg: Rororo (Rowohlt), 1981.
   I remember an interesting piece in it (the only one in English) on terms
for beer in Munich dialect.    
    Robin

-----Original Message-----
From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Giles
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 6:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: German diversity

Dear David,
Your student who can read some German (a growing rarity in these days, alas) should take a look at whichever of Hasso Spode's books 
you have in your library.    He should also go and talk to your 
colleague, Erik Jensen, in that fine department of yours.  Erik is an excellent cultural historian of Germany.

The diversity of drinking preferences in Germany has a lot to do with production, of course.  Wine is more prevalent in the south, because 
that's where the vineyards are.   Prussia leant more toward spirits, 
because that's where the big distilleries were.   The main event that 
changed tastes was not the temperance movement, but the spread of refrigerated boxcars on the railroads in the 1890s.  This meant that those really tasty Bavarian beers, which quickly went sour in the heat of the summer,  could now be enjoyed year round even in the north.  So there was no need to fall back on stronger 
spirits.   Socio-economic factors play a larger role than regional 
ones in preferences for wine, and this remained a largely middle-class drink for much of the country, being more expensive than beer or spirits.

Best,
Geoffrey



>------------------------------
>
>Date:    Thu, 3 Nov 2005 12:18:23 -0500
>From:    David Fahey <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: diversity of German drinking preferences
>
>An undergraduate student of mine is writing a paper on the diversity of 
>German drinking preferences (beer, wine, spirits) with emphasis on its 
>cultural basis.  He reads Germany at the newspaper level.  Any 
>suggestions?

Professor Geoffrey J. Giles
Department of History
University of Florida

Mailing address:
PO Box 117320
Gainesville FL 32611-7320

Office phone: 352-392-0271 Ext. 245
Home phone: 352-375-3587
Fax: 352-379-0935
Homepage: www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ggiles