The American Experience with Alcohol

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxiv

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2. Theoretical and Historical Framework

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Alcohol Belief Systems in a Culturally Pluralistic Society

      • Linda A. Bennett, Genevieve M. Ames

      Pages 3-6

   3. Alcoholism

      • Noel J. Chrisman

      Pages 7-21

   4. American Beliefs about Alcoholism

      • Genevieve M. Ames

      Pages 23-39

   5. Getting on the Program

      • Miriam B. Rodin

      Pages 41-58

3. Case Studies: Americans of European Heritage

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 59-59

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   2. Acculturated Italian-American Drinking Behavior

      • Ben James Simboli

      Pages 61-76

   3. Polish-American Drinking

      • Paul J. Freund

      Pages 77-92

   4. Jewish-Americans and Alcohol

      • Barry Glassner, Bruce Berg

      Pages 93-107

   5. Historical Meanings of Irish-American Drinking

      • Richard Stivers

      Pages 109-129

   6. Appalachia

      • Grace Toney Edwards

      Pages 131-146

4. Case Studies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 147-147

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   2. Ambiguity in Black Drinking Norms

      • Denise Herd

      Pages 149-170

   3. Alcohol

      • Atwood D. Gaines

      Pages 171-197

5. Case Studies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 199-199

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   2. Indians, Ethnicity, and Alcohol

      • Joan Weibel-Orlando

      Pages 201-226

   3. Navajo “Alcoholism”

      • Martin D. Topper

      Pages 227-251

6. Case Studies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 253-253

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   2. Mexican-Americans in California

      • M. Jean Gilbert

      Pages 255-277

This volume is an important contribution to our understanding of culture and alcohol in the United States. Its appearance is also a milestone in the history of alcohol studies in American anthropology. Over the last six years, the volume's editors, initially along with Miriam Rodin, have served as the coorganizers of the Alcohol and Drug Study Group of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). In this capacity, they have organized sessions at the AAA and other meetings, greatly strengthened the research network with a regular and informative newsletter, and painstakingly promoted the publication of anthropological work on al­ cohol and drugs. Appearing just as the responsibility for the Study Group is passed on to others, this book is a fitting emblem of the care and energy with which its editors have built an institutional nexus for alcohol and drug anthropology in North America. The contents of this volume offer a uniquely wide sampling of the diversity of cultural patterns that make up the American experience with alcohol. The collective portrait the editors have assembled extends in several dimensions: through time and history, across such social differ­ entiations as gender, age-grade, and social class, and through such major social institutions as the church and the family. Clearly the dominant dimension of variation in the material that follows, however, is ethnicity. The book offers us a sampler of unprecedented richness of the different experiences with alcohol of American ethnoreligious groups.

• Europe
• Self
• alcohol
• alcoholism
• anthropology
• care
• consumption
• drugs
• energy
• family
• gender
• network
• perception
• religion
• treatment

• Center for Family Research, George Washington University Medical Center, USA

  Linda A. Bennett

• Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Berkeley, USA

  Genevieve M. Ames

Policies and ethics