Wrestling with Starbucks: Conscience, Capital, Cappuccino [Hardcover]

Kim Fellner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 2008

You can find a Starbucks coffeehouse almost anywhere, from Paris, France to Paducah, Kentucky, from the crowded streets of Thailand to shopping malls in Qatar. With nearly 200 of them in New York City alone, this coffee retail giant with humble beginnings has become an actor and icon in the global economy. As we sip our cappuccinos, frappuccinos, and our double half-caf venti low-fat mochaccinos, many of us wonder if Starbucks is a haven of civilization or a cultural predator, a good or bad employer, a fair trader or a global menace. In this entertaining and provocative ramble through Starbucks's ethos and actions, Kim Fellner asks how a coffeehouse chain with a liberal reputation came to symbolize, for some, the ills of globalization.

Armed with an open mind and a sense of humor, Fellner takes readers on an expedition into the muscle and soul of the coffee company. She finds a corporation filled with contradictions: between employee-friendly processes and anti-union practices; between an internationalist vision and a longing for global dominance; between community individuality and cultural hegemony. On a daily basis Starbucks walks a fine line. It must be profitable enough to please Wall Street and principled enough to please social justice advocates. Although observers might argue that the company has done well at achieving a balance, Starbucks's leaders run the risk of satisfying neither constituency and must constantly justify themselves to both.

Through the voices of Central American coffee farmers, officers at corporate headquarters, independent café owners, unionists, baristas, traders, global justice activists, and consumers, Fellner explores the forces that affect Starbucks's worth and worthiness. Along the way, she subjects her own unabashedly progressive perspective to scrutiny and emerges with a compelling and unexpected look at Starbucks, the global economy, our economic convictions, and the values behind our morning cup of joe.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kim Fellner is a longtime progressive organizer and communicator. She earned an M.S. in Communications from the University of Pittsburgh. She lives in Washington D.C.-a short walk from nine coffee joints.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (June 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813543207
• ISBN-13: 978-0813543208
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,167,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So much morre than about Starbucks, July 18, 2008

By 

Michael J. Brown "organizer" (Boston, MA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wrestling with Starbucks: Conscience, Capital, Cappuccino (Hardcover)

This is a great book. It is about so much more than Starbucks. It is about work life and the labor movement, globalization, culture, international trade, corporate branding, community activism, social justice, gentrification, and of course coffee. Fellner is a talented writer, with a sense of humor and a way with words that make this read like a novel. Yet the book is packed with information that goes down like a cool cup of coffee on a summer day. She has done her homework, including first-hand on-the-ground research in Costa Rica and Guatamala, and Seattle -- with the people who run Starbucks, the corporation, and Starbucks,the neighborhood coffee shop, and with those who protest against it.

There is much food for thought here, about how we treat farmers in the global south and how to organize workers in the global north, and what really matters to workers in the 21st Century. Fellner avoids cliches and this book will likely infuriate those who see the world in black and white, (bad corporations and good workers, good unions and nasty bosses, etc.) But that is what makes this book so important. Anyone concerned about globalization, the labor movement, work-life in America, and environmental protection needs to read this book. Wrestling with Starbucks is an apt title because Fellner wrestles with the reality and complexity of Starbucks -- and how it shows up in the world. This is a must read for organizers, activists and anyone concerned about our world today and where it is headed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Book!, September 23, 2008

By 

Karen Branan (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wrestling with Starbucks: Conscience, Capital, Cappuccino (Hardcover)

Kim Fellner, long-time progressive organizer and journalist, is open-minded, engaging, and immensely intelligent. Several years ago she saw a window smashed by an anarchist at Starbucks and didn't like it. "What is Starbucks?" she, a latte lover, wondered. Should it be stoned, boycotted, organized, or supported, even emulated? She started poking around, became a barrista for a day, grilled CEO Howard Schultz three times, chatted with coffee pickers in Costa Rica and Guatemala, asking absolutely everyone all the right questions, blowing the whistle on the Fair Trade folks who claimed they were doing better by the workers than Starbucks, blew the whistle on Schultz over his handling of the Ethiopian growers, blew the whistle on Oxfam over its excesses in the affair. We learn from roasters about what makes good coffee, we learn from a young African American "partner" what makes a shop that works. We learn from Kim, her seamstress mom and opera conductor dad and dozens of friends and professional colleagues what works economically and what doesn't. We get an inside look at the labor movement, where Fellner has worked for years, both devotedly and critically, and see some common ground between its progressive edge and Starbucks. "Wrestling with Starbucks" is a surprising, entertaining, informative romp through a difficult subject, one that'll not only benefit students of business and labor, but the casual reader who was -- or is -- mysteriously mesmerized by Starbucks and wonders what that's all about.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the world in a coffee cup, September 28, 2008

By 

Richard J. Brown (Belfast, Maine) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wrestling with Starbucks: Conscience, Capital, Cappuccino (Hardcover)

Kim Fellner's book moves seamlessly from the personal to the

global, from the cultural to the political. She has created,

in a jaunty and fact-filled odyssey, an examination of Starbucks,

which becomes a metaphor for ways we live and operate in the world.

Providing an abundance of food for thought, and making it all brisk and entertaining, Ms. Fellner's book is as stimulating as a double

espresso. She has a facility for balancing two sides of an issue,

which allows the reader to examine the paradoxes of a "benevolent"

large-scale company, which happens to also wield cultural influence.