From Taverns to Gastropubs

Christel Lane is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and a Fellow of St. John's College at the University of Cambridge, UK. Professor Lane's work on fine-dining restaurants in Britain and Germany and on gastropubs combines her long-standing interest in economic and organizational sociology with the sociology of culture. Her previous books include The Cultivation of Taste: Chefs and the Organization of Fine Dining (Oxford University Press, 2014), and she has published articles on food and dining in Food, Culture and Society, British Journal of Sociology, Poetics, and Industry and Innovation.

• Part I: Historical Perspective 1: The Historical Development of Taverns, Inns, and Public Houses 2: The Social Identity of Taverns, Inns, and Public Houses 3: Eating Out in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: the contest between English and French food 4: Eating Out in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries: changes in food and in social identities Part II: The Rise of the Gastropub 5: Publicans Between and the State and the Brewers: a subordinate relationship 6: The Gastropub and its Divided Identity: food, drink, and sociality 7: Social Identity in Gastropubs: a focus on class, gender, and nation 8: The Future of the Pub: are gastropubs the saviour or the nemesis of the traditional pub?

From Taverns to Gastropubs: Food, Drink, and Sociality in England, by Christel Lane, is an astutely observed study...[T]he author certainly exceeds, and this means that the book is a welcome and valuable offering.