Coffeeland - BOOKS.HCCP.ORG

448 pages

English language

Published Jan. 16, 2021 by Penguin Publishing Group, Penguin Books.

ISBN:: 9780143110743

(1 review)

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

“Extremely wide-ranging and well researched . . . In a tradition of protest literature rooted more in William Blake than in Marx.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

The epic story of how coffee connected and divided the modern world

Coffee is an indispensable part of daily life for billions of people around the world. But few coffee drinkers know this story. It centers on the volcanic highlands of El Salvador, where James Hill, born in the slums of Manchester, England, founded one of the world’s great coffee dynasties at the turn of the twentieth century. Adapting the innovations of the Industrial Revolution to plantation agriculture, Hill helped turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history—a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality, and violence. In the process, both El Salvador and the United States earned the nickname “Coffeeland,” but for …

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

“Extremely wide-ranging and well researched . . . In a tradition of protest literature rooted more in William Blake than in Marx.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

The epic story of how coffee connected and divided the modern world

Coffee is an indispensable part of daily life for billions of people around the world. But few coffee drinkers know this story. It centers on the volcanic highlands of El Salvador, where James Hill, born in the slums of Manchester, England, founded one of the world’s great coffee dynasties at the turn of the twentieth century. Adapting the innovations of the Industrial Revolution to plantation agriculture, Hill helped turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history—a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality, and violence. In the process, both El Salvador and the United States earned the nickname “Coffeeland,” but for starkly different reasons, and with consequences that reach into the present.

Provoking a reconsideration of what it means to be connected to faraway people and places, Coffeeland tells the hidden and surprising story of one of the most valuable commodities in the history of global capitalism.

7 editions

bwaber@bookwyrm.social reviewed Coffeeland by Augustine Sedgewick

An Incredible Combination of History, Economics, and Agriculture

5 stars

Using the development of El Salvador's coffee industry as a jumping off point, Sedgewick convincingly demonstrates how coffee production is inextricably linked to colonialism, technological development, and accidents of history. Sedgewick brings deep research and a holistic approach to this instructive topic, and his extremely engaging writing style makes the entire book that much more enjoyable.

The importance of scientific advances in the mid-1800s was particularly interesting to me, with the discovery of the law of thermodynamics and the fascination with measurement spilling over to the workplace and society more broadly. The examination of its role in facilitating the expansion of scientific management and caloric expenditure measurement, first in the lab and then put in practice on plantations through an elaborate cafeteria and food production system, echoes even today in free corporate lunches. The importance of the human choices made during this period that dramatically shaped working conditions for plantation …

Using the development of El Salvador's coffee industry as a jumping off point, Sedgewick convincingly demonstrates how coffee production is inextricably linked to colonialism, technological development, and accidents of history. Sedgewick brings deep research and a holistic approach to this instructive topic, and his extremely engaging writing style makes the entire book that much more enjoyable.

The importance of scientific advances in the mid-1800s was particularly interesting to me, with the discovery of the law of thermodynamics and the fascination with measurement spilling over to the workplace and society more broadly. The examination of its role in facilitating the expansion of scientific management and caloric expenditure measurement, first in the lab and then put in practice on plantations through an elaborate cafeteria and food production system, echoes even today in free corporate lunches. The importance of the human choices made during this period that dramatically shaped working conditions for plantation workers and the growth of the coffee industry was shocking and incredible.

Overall, this book not only highlights the genesis of the industry that produces a staple of the global diet. It also underlines how economic demand and concern for profit alone can create horrible societal outcomes that are hidden from consumer markets. There is so much more covered in this essential book, I can't highly recommend it enough.