Coffee: A Dark History (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "The catastrophically low price currently paid to the producers of coffee is leading to the largest enforced global lay-off of workers in history..." (more)
Key Phrases: Fair Trade, East India Company, Red Sea (more...)

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 The Washington Post

Antony Wild isn't kidding. The history of coffee is indeed as "dark," as his subtitle puts it, as the cup of Colombian that sits on my desk as these words are written. Himself a coffee lover and an expert on the subject -- he worked for more than a decade as the buyer for a prestigious British specialty-coffee company -- Wild is nonetheless no sentimentalist when it comes to the human and natural toll the bean has extracted -- "poverty, violence, exploitation, environmental devastation, political oppression, and corruption" -- nor to the threats that caffeine poses to the health of those who consume it. As he writes, with the wry touch that makes his book a pleasure:

"Nature has so ordered things that the highest levels of caffeine are to be found in the most important part of its plant, its seed. This is because caffeine is nothing more than a natural insecticide, and the high caffeine levels protect the seed from unwanted attention. Hapless insects who ingest too much find that their nervous systems go into overdrive. By the miracle of international trade, the same symptoms can be observed in office workers the world over."

However harmful caffeine may be -- a question on which the jury is still out, though Wild argues that "science produced by the coffee industry" glosses over and/or distorts its effects -- the buzz it produces has had a significant influence on human history. So Wild argues, and his case is persuasive. He is unable to trace coffee's beginnings to a precise point -- it is commonly understood to have originated in Ethiopia, and "it would appear that the Sufis were the first to adopt coffee drinking," in Yemen in the late 15th century -- but once he reaches the 16th century and the rise of coffeehouses in the Ottoman Empire, things start to fall into place.

The role of the coffeehouse, he argues, simply cannot be underestimated. In the Arab world it "was, other than the reviled tavern, the only place to meet friends outside the home, discuss politics and literature, play backgammon or chess and perhaps gamble," and thus it became "an integral part of the imperial system, providing a forum for the coming together and dissemination of news and ideas." When coffee arrived in Europe in the next century, the same development occurred. People who "had been accustomed to swilling considerable quantities of weak beer throughout the day," and were thus inclined to be phlegmatic and woozy, now were energized by caffeine, setting off "a revolution in . . . political, economic, and cultural life." Wild writes:

"It is almost impossible to distinguish the cultural effects of the coffee house from the physical effects of the coffee served in it. The environment of the 'Penny University' undoubtedly encouraged a degree of association between men who might otherwise never have met, but would they have formed societies without the intellectually stimulating nature of the beverage? It has been argued that, until the arrival of coffee, the population of Europe had existed in a constant state of mild intoxication, since the quality of water was such that many people drank the weak beers of the time morning, noon, and night. By switching to coffee, they were not only reducing the muddle-headedness resulting from alcohol consumption, but also ingesting a powerful new drug. Indeed, it could be said that the introduction of coffee to England led to a . . . 'brain explosion.' "

The list of British institutions that had their origins in coffeehouses is indeed impressive. It includes Lloyds of London, the Stock Exchange, the East India Company and the Royal Society, "which was to become the most illustrious scientific institution of the age." This was "the key contribution of coffee house culture to Britain," with remarkable ramifications: "That these societies consolidated into institutions that were no longer based in coffee houses reflects their evolutionary success and the adaptability of the coffee house culture, which could inspire the creation of august commercial institutions . . . , a magazine such as the Spectator, the first use of the ballot box, the Royal Society, Freemasonry, and the police force."

This creature whom Wild calls "Coffee House Man: energetic, self-motivated, political, practical, reformist, well-connected, cultured, and philanthropic," changed much more than England. Revolutions in the American colonies and then in France traced much of their origins to coffeehouse palavering; indeed, wherever coffee was and is drunk its influence has been nothing short of spectacular. Caffeine -- whether in coffee or tea or in the "so-called 'energy' [soft] drinks which were heavily caffeinated" -- is the fuel that drives the world, as one need look no farther than the nearest coffee line at an office cafeteria to see.

Like so much else in human life, in other words, coffee giveth and coffee taketh away. Its sensory pleasures are undeniable (though not easily found in a world where most coffee is mediocre or worse), and its energizing powers are formidable. So, too, is its place in the international economy. The World Bank "estimates that a staggering 500 million people globally are involved directly or indirectly in the coffee trade," only a tiny number of whom are getting wealthy in the process. Mostly coffee is grown, harvested and processed by subsistence laborers and farmers, producing coffee "at the lowest possible cost for markets in the developed world." Wild, who views this "colonialism" with what can only be called anger, minces few words:

"Instead of living by the old maxim that 'Trade follows the flag,' powerful corporations have realized that it is easier to dispense with the burdensome responsibilities of actual colonization, and use modern transnational organizations such as the [World Trade Organization], the World Bank and the [International Monetary Fund] to impose their will from the boardrooms of Manhattan, Paris, and Berlin. For the impoverished farmer whose national politics bend to the needs of these transnational institutions and the corporations they serve, the notion of democracy is a spurious validation of the yoke under which they are forced to work."

No matter where one looks, the coffee picture is not pretty. When it was introduced to the Western Hemisphere in the 18th century, the common feature in all the countries where it flourished -- Jamaica, Cuba, Guatemala, Peru, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Mexico -- was "that they had large existing slave populations that enabled coffee growing to be established with startling rapidity." The huge plantations of Brazil were "founded on the continuation of slavery long after it had been banned in Europe." In 1880, one member of Parliament said, "Brazil is coffee, and coffee is the negro." Eight years later, Brazil finally banned slavery, but the conditions under which the ostensibly freed laborers worked barely changed.

Coffee is now huge in Vietnam, "the second largest producer of coffee worldwide" after Brazil, which is -- at least for the moment -- good for Vietnam, but according to Wild its "massive increase [in production] has been blamed for the global collapse of coffee prices." There are also "unsubstantiated but persistent rumours concerning possible dioxin contamination of the coffee crop, a legacy of the widespread spraying of Agent Orange by the Americans during the Vietnam War. Vietnam is the country where coffee's dark history has come home to roost with a vengeance."

Et cetera. Like sugar (see Sidney Mintz's Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History), cotton and many other agricultural products that are grown to serve the global market, coffee has a long history of exploitation and abuse of resources both human and natural. The indignation with which Antony Wild tells its story is well founded, and so too is the sorrow: "Coffee used to be a business in which, despite its manifest drawbacks, a man could think himself honourably employed. In common with many other businessmen, the coffee man as often as not now finds himself effectively a receiver of stolen goods and an enslaver of the Third World. The more conscientious may scratch their heads and wonder how on earth this came about. Most keep their conscience prisoner."

Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 323 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (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: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #514,841 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 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

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.

15 of 16 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)

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.

9 of 10 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 (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.