In public health terms, alcohol is no ordinary commodity. It accounts not only for a substantial portion of the world’s burden of disease but also for much social harm. Because of this, a majority of countries have some kind of restrictions beyond general rules for foodstuffs on alcohol’s...

Research developments since the appearance of MacAndrew and Edgerton's landmark volume, Drunken Comportment (1969), are summarized. The challenge of moving beyond the book is to understand what lies behind cultural variations in drunken comportment. Four specific factors in variations in drunken...

In an era of biomedicalization where findings in genetic and neurobiological research are seen as "breakthroughs" by the media and hence by the general public, it is important for social scientists to acknowledge the effect of their contributions to the alcohol field not only to their own...