From the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth Rock to the rise of the pandemic “quarantini,” alcohol has been a foundation of American society and culture. The Atlantic's Kate Julian explores how this tool for cohesion and cooperation eventually became a means of coping, and what history can teach us about improving our drinking habits.
This conversation originally ran on the podcast Today, Explained, hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
Further reading: America Has a Drinking Problem
Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at theexperiment@theatlantic.com.
The Experiment Introduces More Perfect
The End of This Experiment
The Experiment Introduces: How To Start Over With Olga Khazan
The 50-Square-Mile Zone Where the Constitution Doesn't Apply
Fighting to Remember Mississippi Burning
Teenage Life After Genocide
Judge Judy’s Law
The Experiment introduces Dead End: A New Jersey Political Murder Mystery
The Resurgence of the Abortion Underground
Should We Return National Parks to Native Americans?
Who Belongs in the Cherokee Nation?
The Helen Keller Exorcism
An Engineer Tries to Build His Way Out of Tragedy
One American Family’s Debt to Ukraine
Just Put Some Vicks on It
El Sueño de SPAM
Cram Your SPAM
Uncle SPAM
SPAM on the Range
In Between Pro-life and Pro-choice
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Radiolab
More Perfect
Spooked
Death, Sex & Money
The New Yorker Radio Hour