Description
In many contexts of Greek social life, Scotch whisky has coincidentally become a symbol of “Greekness,” national identity, modernity, and the middle class. This ethnographic study follows the social life of Scotch in Greece through three distinct trajectories in time and space in order to investigate how the meanings of the beverage are projected, negotiated, and acquired by various different networks. By examining the mediascapes of the Greek cultural industry, the Athenian nightlife and entertainment, and the North Aegean drinking habits, the study illustrates how Scotch became associated with modernity, popular music and culture, a lavish style, and an antidomestic masculine mentality.
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This is a work of ethnography drawing on fieldwork and interviews involving the author's friends from Athens, shepherds and laborers of Dkyros, and marketers and heads of global corporations. Bampilis is an anthropologist currently affiliated with Oxford U. and doing research on the far right in Greece in relation to the economic crisis. In this study he discusses the party-out-of-control consumption of whisky in Greece in the mid-1980s, and the Greek government's implementation of a strict quota on whisky imports--exploring the meanings and implications of both in connection with dreams of modernity, the Golden Age of Greek cinema, advertising, and popular style and entertainment, among other themes. This is the first volume in the publisher's series titled "Food, Nutrition, and Culture." Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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