Beeronomics

Beer has played a pivotal role in history, from the transition to an agarian lifestyle in ancient Mesopotamia to bankrolling Britain's imperialist conquests. Beeronomics tells the story of beer through economics, the innovations it brought, and how its strategic taxation and regulation helped shape the world.

Johan Swinnen is Professor of Economics and Director of the LICOS-Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance at the KU Leuven, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Food Security and the Environment (FSE) at Stanford University. He is a Fellow of the AAEA and the EAAE, was President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (2012-2015) and is President of The Beeronomics Society. He was previously Lead Economist at the World Bank (2003-04) and Economic Advisor at the European Commission (1998-2001), and has been advisor to many international organizations and governments. He holds a Ph.D from Cornell University, and has published widely on agricultural and food policies, political economy, institutional reform, trade, global value chains, and standards.
Devin Briski is a print and audio journalist focusing on food, ideas, and technology. She serves as content marketing manager for the events team at Vox Media, which produces Code Conference and Vox Conversations. She is also host of the podcast One Mans Trash about the collectibles market. Devin began her career in Silicon Valley, where she worked on the publishing and marketing team of Stanford Social Innovation Review and co-founded online magazine The Ventured Life. She holds a bachelors degree in sociology and a master's degree in journalism, both from Columbia University.

Introduction: From Monastries to Multinationals and Back
1: The World's Oldest Profession: Brewing in the Cradle of Civilization
2: A Revolution Every Thousand Years: How Hops Jumpstarted Commercial Brewing in Medieval Europe
3: The Brew that Launched a Thousand Ships: How Porter Paid for the British Royal Navy
4: A Revolution Every Thousand Years, Part II: How Bottom-Fermentation Made Beer the Darling of the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions
5: How TV Killed the Local Brewery
6: Beer Monopoly: How the Belgian Beer Barons Dethroned the King
7: Socialist Lubricant: Liberalization, Take-Overs, and Restructuring of the East European Brewery Industry
8: The Belgian White: Reincarnation of an Old World Brew
9: The Reinheitsgebot: Protection Against Competition or Contamination?
10: From Land to Brand: How Nineteenth-Century Nationalist Politics Planted the Seeds for the Global Trademark Battle Over "Budweiser"
11: The Great Convergence: The Fall of the Beer-Drinking Nation, the Rise of the Beer-Drinking World
12: From Vodka to Baltika: Deciphering Russia's Recent Love Affair with Beer
13: Trading Water or Terroir? The Changing Nature of the Beer Trade
14: Craft Nation: How Belgium's "Peasant Beers" Became the Best in the World
15: Hop Heads and Locaholics: Strategies of the American Craft Beer Movement