The Spectre of the Drunkard (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
Spirited Measures and Victorian Hangovers: Public Attitudes to Alcohol, the Law and Moral Regulation. From alarm about the prospect of "twenty-four drinking" to campaigns for a minimum price per unit, the last decade has shown that alcohol consumption is an inflammatory issue in this country. It has become commonplace to hear that drinking is "out of control" and that it is a new and worsening problem largely unique to Britain. However, comparative research reveals that alcohol consumption in Britain is not unusually high and even a cursory glance at history shows that extreme bouts of alarm about drinking have been common on these shores since at least the eighteenth century. What is at the root of this national neurosis about alcohol? This thesis considers the historical development of both public attitudes to alcohol and laws relating to alcohol in England and Wales. Covering issues of crime, disorder, health and immorality, it investigates the various means through which alcohol has been constructed as a social problem through time. This qualitative focus on change and continuity in history allows for the attitudinal and legal impact of certain key developments to be assessed. Particular attention is paid to the Victorian temperance movement which, drawing especially on the ideas of Hunt and Ruonavaara, is characterised as a moral regulation project. It is argued that, although the temperance movement itself declined in the early twentieth century, the moral regulation project it initiated continues, in certain ways, to shape public attitudes towards drinking and the legal regulation of alcohol in the present day. Rather than being a response to contemporary behavioural trends, this thesis proposes that continuing anxieties, apparent in how we think about and regulate alcohol, are more usefully understood as a hangover from the Victorian period. 2.2.1) The Marriage of Medicine and Morality…………………………283 2.2.2) Separating the Medical and the Moral………………………….287 2.3) Reflections…………………………………………………………………...292 3) Debates About Alcohol and Health, 2003-2010……………………………….292 3.1) The Apple and the Tree…………………………………………………….292 3.2) Passive Drinking…………………………………………………………….294 3.3) The Slippery Slope of Risk…………………………………………………298 3.4) Regulating Risk With Precaution…………………………………………..303 4
The politics of alcohol: A history of the drink question in England
2010
Despite being called The Politics of Alcohol, the book is not a study of high politics and policy-making. John Greenaway has already provided an account of alcohol policy in Britain in this vein, running from 1830 to 1970.(3) Nicholls' work differs from this in two key ...
2011
Introduction This discussion piece is based on research undertaken as part of the author‟s ongoing PhD project. Drawing on history, sociology, criminology and law, the broader empirical enquiry investigates attitudes to alcohol and their relationship with the development of laws relating to alcohol (primarily in England and Wales) from the nineteenth century onwards. It builds on the insights of moral regulation theory, as espoused by Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer as well as Alan Hunt, in order to position the law within a wider project through which individual behaviour is governed. Consequently, a diverse range of sources, including newspaper reportage, cartoons, health promotion literature and advertising, are drawn upon to help understand the various ways, legally and morally, through which people were, and are, compelled to behave in particular ways. This piece focuses on the period 1914-1918 and, in accordance with these theoretical formulations, raises issues relating to bo...
Addiction, 1984
The relationship between the state and the use and abuse of alcohol has been a long and complicated one. Alcohol has been seen, at one and the same time, as a product to be taxed, a threat to social order, a danger to public health and an economic activity to be fostered. Differing government departments, with their differing responsibilities, have implemented contradictory policies, and this has been complicated by the interaction of parliament, pressure groups and local government.
Histoire Sociale/Social History
At the tum of the century the English drink trade boasted a reputation for political effectiveness which other pressure groups could only envy. 1 The brewers had money and MPs, while the publicans swayed votes of working-class drinkers. This political influence was real but not unlimited. Sometimes Liberal politicians and temperance reformers depicted the trade as more formidable than it was in order to excuse their own defeats and to provoke a reaction against what they alleged to be corruption by privileged monopolists. 2
Drinking in Victorian and Edwardian Britain
Drinking in Victorian and Edwardian Britain
use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.