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1 Introduction – A History of Drinking: The Scottish Pub since 1700

There can be few social historians who don't sometimes, somehow, have to deal with drinking. Alcohol has featured so centrally in western societies that it must be regarded in many ways as more pivotal than food to social relations, gender identities, domestic life, health and fiscal matters. Drink is far less beneficial of course than food. It is often painted as the 'demon drink', the scourge of economic efficiency, driving safety, good order and high morals. But its influence is undeniable. It plays a huge part in national identities, though here people's affections can be very fickle. The central institution in British life has been the public house, a place of community recourse for centuries. Yet it was a place where very many people never dared to go. There must have been millions of women for whom the pub was off-limits even when it was a near neighbour for their whole lives. In societies where respectability clashed with the rough, no institution divided society as much as the public house.