Rum A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776

In this definitive history, Ian Williams describes in captivating detail howum and the molasses was made from the 18th century to the present. Rum wassed by the colonists to clear Native American tribes and to buy slaves. Toake it, they regularly traded with the enemy Frency during the Seven Years'ar, angering their British masters and setting themselves on the road toevolution. And the regular flow of rum was essential to keeping both armiesn the field. From Valley Forge to the trenches of the First World War,oldiers relied on rum to keep up their fighting spirits. Even though theuritans themselves were fond of rum in quantities that would appall modernay doctors, temperance and Prohibition have obscured the historical role ofhe "Global Spirit with its warm heart in the Caribbean.";Ian Williams' book as biting and multifacited, yet warm-spirited as the drink itself -riumphantly restores Rum's rightful place in history, taking us across spacend time, from its origins in the plantations of Barbados through Puritan andevolutionary New England, to voodoo rites in modern Haiti, where to mix rum

Ian Williams is The Nation magazine's UN Correspondent and the author of DESERTER: George Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans and His Own Past. Since becoming interested in rum he has amassed a collection of "rumabilia;" books, pamphlets, prints, advertising ephemera, bottles and decanters, hundreds of rum labels from all over the world, and not least, a growing collection of rum, from Croatia to Thailand, from Kazakhstan to India, from Hawaii to Argentina. Williams lives in New York City.