Edward Slingerland | Drinking for 10,000 Years: Intoxication and Civilization

Edward Slingerland’s latest research is a deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization — and the evolutionary roots of humanity’s appetite for intoxication. “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization” elegantly cuts through the tangle of urban legends that surround our notions of intoxication to provide a rigorous, scientifically-grounded explanation for our love of alcohol. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, Slingerland shows that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers.

Edward Slingerland is Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he also holds appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Asian Studies. Dr. Slingerland is an expert on early Chinese thought, comparative religion and cognitive science of religion, big data approaches to cultural analysis, cognitive linguistics, digital humanities and humanities-science integration.