Did A Vodka Ban Precipitate The Russian Revolution?
And the way Forsyth tells it, drink has caused us to say yes to an awful lot. The desire for booze, he suggests, led to — among other things — fixed agriculture, civilisation, cities, Anglo-Saxon England, America and the Russian Revolution. (In 1914, the Tsar unwisely banned vodka.) It may even be the reason that we came down from the trees in the first place — because the forest floor was where to find fermented fruits.