Rod Phillips
Professor - History of alcohol (especially wine), history of food, history of the family, 18th-century France, French Revolution
| Degrees: | B.A. (Trent, Canada), M.A. (Otago, New Zealand), D.Phil. (Oxford, U.K.) |
| Phone: | 613-520-2600 x 2824 |
| Email: | roderick.phillips@carleton.ca |
| Office: | 409 Paterson Hall |
I’m a historian of early modern and modern Europe, with a special focus on eighteenth-century France and the French Revolution. Thematically, my interests are alcohol, food, and the family.
I started as a historian of the family. My doctoral dissertation was on marriage and divorce during the French Revolution, and I later expanded my scope to the western world more broadly. I still work on the history of the family, and I am Editor of the Journal of Family History, the journal of record in the field. I’m also preparing a new edition of my book on the history of divorce.
In the late 1990s, I turned to the history of wine (and alcohol more generally), and since then that has been the main focus of my research and publications. Among my current projects is a book on wine during the French Revolution. It’s supported by an SSHRC Insight Grant (2021-25).
In addition to writing on the history of alcohol, I write on wine for the wine media. I wrote a weekly wine column for the Ottawa Citizen for 15 years and I write the wine features for the print and on-line editions of NUVO Magazine (a luxury lifestyle quarterly) as well as for specialist media such The World of Fine Wine (UK) and guildsomm.com (US). I am the Canada consultant to The World Atlas of Wine (UK), and I also judge in wine competitions in Canada, the US, Europe, and elsewhere.
Over the years, I have had research fellowships in Canada, the UK, France, Sweden, Australia, and the US. I have given academic papers in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the US, the UK, France, Sweden, Spain, Germany, China, and Taiwan.
I offer undergraduate courses on the history of alcohol, history of food, history of the family, the French Revolution, and everyday life in Early Modern Europe. My recent MA supervisions include theses on alewives in 17th-century England and coffeehouses in 18th-century France. My current PhD supervision is on the transfer of the notion of terroir in wine from France to North America. I’m available to supervise research in the history of food and drink, eighteenth-century France, the French Revolution, and the history of the family.
Publications
Articles, chapters, entries
I have published many articles and book chapters on marriage and divorce and on wine and alcohol. My articles have appeared in journals such as Social History, Journal of Social History, French Historical Studies, Annales ESC, and Annales de Démographie Historique. I have contributed many entries to volumes such as Oxford Bibliographies On-line, Encyclopedia of Alcohol and Temperance, Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, and Encyclopedia of Early Modern Europe.
I have also written the texts for three TED-Ed animated shorts, including this one on Prohibition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4BDnlUQ3CA
Books published
Family Breakdown in Late-Eighteenth-Century France: Divorces in Rouen, 1792-1803 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980)
Divorce in New Zealand (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1981)
Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988)
Untying the Knot: Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; 6 foreign-language editions)
Society, State, and Nation in Twentieth-Century Europe (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1995)
A Short History of Wine (London: Penguin Books, 2000; New York: HarperCollins, 2001; 5 foreign-language editions)
Ontario Wine Country (Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 2006)
Alcohol: A History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014; paperback, 2019; Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2015; 4 other foreign-language and international editions)
French Wine: A History (Sacramento: University of California Press, 2016; paperback, 2020)
9000 Years of Wine: A World History (Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 2017)
The Wines of Canada (Oxford, UK: Infinite Ideas “Classic Wine Library,” 2017)
Wine: A Social and Cultural History of the Drink that Changed our Lives (Oxford, UK: Infinite Ideas, 2018)
(with Jean Bart) Un curé dans les vignes. Le recueil des jours de la vendange de François Delachère, curé de Volnay (1726-1781) (Dijon: Éditions Universitaires de Dijon, 2024)
Publications forthcoming and in preparation
Chapters in two volumes of the forthcoming 6-volume Cultural History of Wine (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming)
(Editor) Food in Early Modern Europe (London: Routledge, under contract)
A New History of Divorce (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, under contract for delivery in 2024). A revised and updated edition of Putting Asunder.
The Wines of South-west France (London: Académie du Vin Library, under contract)
Cabernet Franc: Blending Stalwart and Stand-alone Star (London: Académie du Vin Library, under contract)