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Drinking Matters

In this podcast series Dr Beat Kümin offers the first comparative survey of early modern public houses and their unique contribution to European culture. Public houses emerge as communication spaces in a state of continuous renegotiation. As facilitators of infinite forms of human exchange, they supported rulers as easily as rebels. 'Innovative' principles like consumer choice did not need to be invented by the modern restaurant, they characterized the trade from its medieval origins. Local cultural life depended on inns just as much as the early modern communication revolution. Within a communal infrastructure featuring town halls, market squares and parish churches, public houses became the principal social sites in preindustrial Europe.

Drinking Matters - introduction

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Introducing this series on drinking culture in early modern Central Europe.

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History

Typology and Topography

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Defining the styles of drinking establishment and how they fitted into communities.

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History

Agents and interests

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Who owned and ran drinking establishments in the early modern period and who were the customers?

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History

Economic interests and the provision of services

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Public houses represented major economic assets and were significant employers. They also reflected local cuisines and tastes whilst often innovating in the provision of services to clients.

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History

Communication, subversion and stability.

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

Public houses were obvious centres of communication within communities, but what forms did this interaction take and were they a subversive or stabilising influence?

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History

Contemporary views and reviews

12:25 Mon 05 Jan 2009

What were the contemporary views of public houses and the social good, or ill, that they represented? How did establishments relate to the other institutions common to community life in the early modern period?

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History