Mark Hailwood provides a timely and well-considered account of the alehouse between 1550 and 1700, a period in which the institution experienced both a ‘golden age’ and an unprecedented level of controversy. Whilst previous histories have discussed tensions over the English alehouse in terms of intoxication and political or religious subversion, Hailwood argues that the primary attraction of the alehouse was the opportunity for ‘good fellowship’ and participation in sociability. Furthermore, the ‘battle’ over alehouses in this period was characterized less by tension surrounding the institution, but rather by attempts to regulate the leisure activities of ordinary men and women, and, conversely, the efforts of these men and women to negotiate or resist such regulation.

The book is thematically structured through four chapters. The first chapter explores the ‘functions’ of alehouses in the early modern community. These included both the ‘legitimate’, sanctioned purposes such as provision for the poor and offering lodging for travellers, as well as the ‘illegitimate’, yet arguably more vital, function of providing a site for recreation and sociability. Although petitioners for a licence omitted this latter function in their appeals to authority, Hailwood concludes that in practice ‘good fellowship’ and recreational drinking was the principal function of the role of the early modern alehouse. In chapter 2, Hailwood responds to the established depiction of ‘alebench politics’ being inherently seditious, anti-authoritarian and irreligious. Here, Hailwood adds a level of nuance to the debate by recognizing that although instances of indiscriminate railing against authority occurred in alehouses, these examples were far from the norm. Rather, the alehouse was home to a ‘heterogeneous and fractured political culture’ (pp. 70–1).

In chapter 3, Hailwood draws on a wide selection of broadside ballads and popular print sources to explore the ‘idiom’ of good fellowship and demonstrate that alehouse patrons sought to ‘participate in a series of meaningful social rituals’ rather than narcotic oblivion. The chapter highlights the varied expectations and demands informing participation in alehouse sociability, and how complex social and cultural meanings constructed these expectations. The fourth chapter draws on depositions, diaries and legal material to compare the practice of good fellowship to its representations in ballads. A wide range of activities constituted participation in alehouse ‘company’, yet the chapter asserts that this sociability was significantly compartmentalized rather than communal. This prompts Hailwood to observe that ‘it is more significant. . .to ask not who drank in alehouses, but rather who drank in alehouses with whom’ (p. 181). Hailwood's conclusion makes a significant contribution to the historiography of social change in early modern England by stressing the social centrality of the alehouse and that rather than escaping existing social bonds and relationships, alehouse patrons sought to reinforce them.

Purposefully omitting London and only occasionally featuring larger cities such as York, Bristol and Norwich, Hailwood turns his attention to ‘the settlements in which the vast majority of the population lived the majority of their lives’, ranging from ‘county centres’ and market towns to rural villages and hamlets (p. 12). Whilst set away from the cities, there is still scope for engaging the historian of the built environment. Hailwood's focus beyond the capital makes a compelling case for the study of early modern society as a whole, and reveals the huge potential of local archives. The study's integration of urban and rural spaces recalls Penelope Corfield's useful suggestion for studying localities in relation to each other, within the context of wider communities, rather than completely separating them.Footnote ¹ Finally, Hailwood offers a brief reflection on the ‘improvement’ of alehouses during the course of the eighteenth century, and identifies them as being part of Peter Borsay's ‘urban renaissance’ and an ‘increasingly crowded market of intoxicants and sites of sociability in the eighteenth century’ (p. 228). Hailwood identifies the need for further scholarship regarding the extent of this shift and its implications for the meanings attached to alehouse sociability.

The strengths of this book lie in the richness of its research and in its author's sensitivity to the diversities found in both the social practices and relationships within the alehouse and its outward reputations in print culture. Hailwood's discussions of alehouses’ local and state regulation, and the potentially gendered practices of participation within them, emphasize a culture – indeed a society – characterized more by variety than uniformity. Whilst the breadth of Hailwood's study results in an inevitable lack of firm conclusions, this approach only affirms one of the central aims of the book to demonstrate the multifaceted nature of alehouse sociability. It is an essential addition to the expanding cultural history of drinking, and offers future scholars a number of pertinent avenues to explore. Urban historians will find it a helpful introduction to the field.