Drinking Occasions: Comparative Perspectives on Alcohol and Culture: By Dwight B. Heath. Brunner/Mazel (Taylor & Francis).2000, 208pp., $49.95. ISBN: 1-58391-047-6. (original) (raw)

It is always a real pleasure to read anything written by Dwight Heath, Professor of Anthropology at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. He has made numerous important and fascinating contributions to the alcohol field. This new book, true to form, is enjoyable and informative. It has been produced as part of a series of works commissioned by the International Center for Alcohol Policies (ICAP), based in Washington, DC. ICAP is funded by eleven major beverage alcohol companies. Other books in this series have dealt with drinking patterns, alcohol and pleasure and alcohol and emerging markets. These books have all been of a high academic standard and have brought together some invaluable material. Sadly, this has all been produced in the form of expensive hardback volumes. This will inevitably limit their availability and appeal.

Drinking Occasions sets out to present a series of thoughtful essays dealing with some fundamental issues. The latter include when, where, how and why people drink, what they drink, who drinks and who does not drink. These themes are addressed against an international context and with reference to important scientific questions, such as the adequacy of evidence and research methods. One does not have to be an anthropologist to understand and appreciate this book. It is very well written and provides a wealth of supporting material, much of which will be new to most of the potential readers. As noted by Marcus Grant (President of ICAP) in the foreword, relatively little attention has been paid in the extensive literature on alcohol problems about ‘the vast majority of drinking occasions, namely those which lead to feelings of subjective well-being and social cohesiveness’.

Drinking Occasions certainly goes some way to compensating for this desideratum. The book is also full of insights and examples. These are drawn from many cultures and help to illustrate the complexities as well as some of the commonalties that make the relationship between moderate, harm-free drinking and heavy, problematic or inappropriate drinking so fascinating. It should, however, be stressed that there are not two quite separate worlds of drinking, the harm-free and the harmful. These are simply ends of a continuum. Individuals often move backwards and forwards along this continuum at different stages of their drinking careers.