Coffee: A Dark History [Hardcover]

Antony Wild (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 27, 2005

COFFEE TRADER and historian Antony Wild delivers a rollicking history of the most valuable legally traded commodity in the world after oil--and an industry that employs one hundred million people throughout the world. From obscure beginnings in East Africa in the fifteenth century as a stimulant in religious devotion, coffee became an imperial commodity, produced by poor tropical countries and consumed by rich temperate ones. Through the centuries, the influence of coffee on the rise of capitalism and its institutions has been enormous. Revolutions were once hatched in coffeehouses, commercial alliances forged, secret societies formed, and politics and art endlessly debated. Today, while coffee chains spread like wildfire, coffee-producing countries are in crisis: with prices at a historic low, they are plagued by unprecedented unemployment, abandoned farms, enforced migration, and massive social disruption. Bridging the gap between coffee's dismal colonial past and its perilous corporate present, "Coffee reveals the shocking exploitation that has always lurked at the heart of the industry.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While coffee historian Wild brings enthusiasm to this tome on the 500-year history of the caffeinated bean, it doesn't match the simple passion with which coffee lovers enjoy their morning java. (In fairness to the author, how could it?) Wild (The East India Company) traces the bean as it makes its way from Africa to the Middle East (it was once known as the "wine of Araby") to the West, and the rise in cafe culture across Europe and eventually the New World, where, thanks to the Boston Tea Party, coffee surpassed tea as the patriotic drink of choice for a fledging nation. But Wild repeatedly reminds readers that for all the pleasure a cup of coffee brings to its drinker, the history of this beguiling brew is indeed dark. As long as there has been coffee, Wild asserts, there have been colonial powers—and now corporations—to exploit the workers that grow it. While this is a fascinating story that combines history with anthropology, too often the writing is buried under the heartless statistics of economic formulations. However, the work does provide caffeine junkies with intriguing reading material next time they find themselves waiting in line to order their grande vanilla latte. Illus. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Wild reveals that in the U.S. alone, some 1.5 million people are involved in the coffee industry either directly through coffee processing, sales, and distribution or indirectly through manufacture of paper cups and the like. Although coffee consumption is rising, the amount of money paid to coffee producers continues to fall, reducing many to poverty and destroying already fragile economies. Ironically, some of the trouble in coffee markets may be attributed to U.S. efforts to revive Vietnam's economy through the planting of lesser-quality coffee bushes. Wild further links coffee to ill health and to colonialism, and he holds in particular contempt the development of instant coffee. Tracing coffee's history and spread from sixteenth-century East Africa and Arabia, Wild perceptively connects it with Napoleon's career and with the poet Rimbaud. Wild depicts a particularly unflattering picture of competing efforts to endorse or to condemn caffeine's invigorating effect. His radical take on the rise of Starbucks makes McDonald's growth look innocuous. Wild may represent an extreme stance, but his effort raises many troubling questions. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 323 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (June 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393060713
• ISBN-13: 978-0393060713
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #481,468 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, more like a text book., August 7, 2005

By 

Jennifer A. Wickes "Food Writer" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Coffee: A Dark History (Hardcover)

Library Journal
Wild (The East India Company) has been widely recognized for introducing specialty coffees to Great Britain. Here, he presents a 500-year history of the much-loved drink, drawing on science, politics, anthropology, and alchemy before concluding that today's large companies, with their demand for lower prices, have put coffee farmers out of business and thousands of workers out of jobs in Africa and Central America. Wild's explanation of how major corporations have taken over the coffee industry, supported by public information direct from the coffee distributors themselves, will inspire readers to comtemplate their contribution to this global situation. The only comparison would be Stewart Lee Allen's The Devil's Cup, which describes similar facts but from the first person. With its political and historical perspectives, this book reads more like a textbook. Recommended for academic libraries; an optional purchase for others.-Jennifer A. Wickes, Suite101.com, Pine Beach, NJ Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Coffee: A Wild History, April 3, 2006

By 

A. Geier - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Coffee: A Dark History (Hardcover)

I recommend that you peruse the pages of this book at your local library or book store prior to purchasing. The author has compiled 308 pages of supposed facts, ideas, opinions, and "objective illumination." No doubt some of the data provided is true and the first 83 pages engross the reader to the beginning of the history of coffee. Unfortunately the narrative then seems to fall apart not because the information may be false or questionable, but rather the author goes off on tangents which seem to simply fill up the pages. Is Rimbaud's influence on Bob Dylan and Patti Smith necessary in the discussion of coffee?

There comes a point when the reader realizes that the author's writing is more of free flow of thoughts and assumed facts. Add to this the lack of citations and notes (which the author fully acknowledges) and the book becomes a jumble of many figures, dates, places and people that lacks organization.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No Enlightenment in this Dark History, February 11, 2008

By 

Penumbra (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coffee: A Dark History (Hardcover)

Apparently "Coffee: A Dark History" was written by a man who didn't take his mother's advice and may actually have believed everything he read. Speculation, legends, myths, semi-documented accounts, and a smattering of facts all seem to be given equal weight in this book.

One gets the feeling that the author wants to believe that coffee use goes back to antiquity, even though he tells you he can't provide any evidence of that. More than once there is a vague reference to the Biblical "forbidden tree of knowledge" which could have been...coffee! In fact, any time a dark beverage is mentioned in any ancient writings it might have been...coffee! (Though a reading of the context usually indicates that it was not.)

The book presents material such as the discredited German study from the early 90's which claimed an analysis of the hair of 3000 year old Egyptian mummies contained cocaine and nicotine (but not caffeine). There is no scientific or historical support suggesting the ancient Egyptians had access to New World plants like coca or tobacco, but the total absence of caffeine fails (once again) to prove the ancient world drank coffee. There is no reason to even give it a one line mention in the book. Elsewhere there is mention of Islamic Arabs in the 5th century, although Mohamed wasn't born until the 6th century.

When so many of the author's "facts" are in error, it's hard to know when he may have gotten something right. (Even an blind pig finds the occasional truffle, right?) If you really want to know something about the history of coffee, consult at least two other books after reading this one.

To add insult to injury, it's not even a lively or entertaining read. Not recommended.