Craze - Dr Jessica Warner

An intimate, irreverent history of the 'gin craze' in eighteenth-century London 'Gin took London by storm in the first half of the 18th century. It 'was the original urban drug,' says Warner in this intriguing slice of social history. 'Cheap, potent, and readily available,' it aided London's poor in escaping the wretchedness of their lives and was considered a public menace by Daniel Defoe and Samuel Johnson. (Hogarth's famous print Gin Lane imagined a nightmarish world destroyed by a demonic drink.) Warner gives us the whole story of gin: where it came from (Holland), who drank it (a large percentage were women), how it was perceived (as a threat to the nation), and how legislative efforts to curb consumption fared (badly).