AMERICAN CYCLES OF PROHIBITION: DO THEY HAVE ROOTS IN ANCIENT DRINKING NORMS ?

Abstract

It has been proposed that different drinking norms developed in northern and southern Europe during antiquity and that these patterns are still found today in the cultures overlying these areas. In terms of western European civilization and its colonies, anti-alcohol movements have primarily emerged in the Protestant Nordic and English language speaking culture. European immigrants to the New World brought with them their different drinking attitudes and practices to both North and South America. In North America—particularly in the United States—clashes between these divergent cultures and their drinking patterns have precipitated anti-alcohol, temperance, and prohibition cycles.