by Anthony Cooke (Author)
What did Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Dorothy Wordsworth, James Hogg and Robert Southey have in common? They all toured Scotland and left accounts of their experiences in Scottish inns, ale houses, taverns and hotels. Similarly, poets and writers from Robert Burns and Walter Scott to Ian Rankin and Irvine Welsh have left vivid descriptions of the pleasures and pains of Scottish drinking places. Pubs also provided public spaces for occupational groups to meet, for commercial transactions, for literary and cultural activities and for everyday life and work rituals such as births, marriages and deaths and events linked with the agricultural year. These and other historical issues such as temperance, together with contemporary issues, like the liberalization of licensing laws and the changing nature of Scottish pubs, are discussed in this fascinating book.
Format: Illustrated
Pages: 280
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 31 Jul 2015
ISBN 10: 1474407625
ISBN 13: 9781474407625
Cooke has done a great deal to show us the diversity of the place over three centuries. He has laboured hard, using a huge diversity of archival sources, and has read widely in literature and local history to show the ways in which the Scottish pub distilled so much of our culture in one room. He fixes details on the economics and demographics as well as the society of the bar; he gives us prices and valuations, numbers of pubs per inhabitant, and builds a well-written account of the commerce, sociability and drinking communities of the country. The narrative is pacy, bowling the reader through the story with acumen and insight. -- Callum Brown, Reviews in History
Magnificent...it is a real joy to find such an erudite exposition on Scottish pubs, drinking and temperance in their proper historical context...there are some fascinating insights into how others saw Scottish drinking places at different times in history. -- Allan McLean, Scottish Local History