EssayAnthropologist Solomon Katz proposed in the 1980s the intriguing ‘beer before bread’ theory, which suggested that early agriculturalists were driven to farming not by their wholesome desire for crusty loaves but by their lust for that other staple grain product: beer.

GR OnlineI’M TWENTY-SIX YEARS old, and recently stopped taking the birth-control pill. I react poorly to synthetic hormones – they aggravate my anxiety and put a weird haze over my experience of the world – so the decision made sense....