In this captivating book, Stewart Lee Allen treks three-quarters of the way around the world on a caffeinated quest to answer these profound questions: Did the advent of coffee give birth to an enlightened western civilization? Is coffee, indeed, the substance that drives history?
In his hilarious and captivating book, Stewart Lee Allen sets out to answer these profound questions. From the cliffhanging villages of Southern Yemen, where coffee was first cultivated eight hundred years ago, to a cavernous coffeehouse in Calcutta, the drinking spot for two of India's three Nobel Prize winners . . . from the posh salons of Vienna and Paris, where the true origin of the croissant is at last revealed, to the good ol' U.S.A., where something resembling brown water passes for coffee, Allen treks three quarters of the way around the world by train, rickshaw, cargo freighter—even mule—on a caffeinated quest to filter out the truth about the influence of coffee on society and history.
The evidence of java's influence on the world speaks for itself. When coffee was the sole provenance of the Arabs, their civilization flourished beyond all others. Once the Ottomans got hold of the bean, they became the most powerful nation on the planet. Its early appearance in Great Britain helped jump-start that nation's drive for world dominance (Lloyd's of London started in a coffeehouse). In Parisian cafés the French Revolution was born. During the Civil War, union soldiers were consuming the bean under the orders of President Jackson while the South, hopelessly decaffeinated by a naval embargo, went down to inglorious defeat.
Taking readers around the world, Stewart Lee Allen wittily proves that the world was wired long before the Internet. And those who deny the power of coffee (namely tea-drinkers), do so at their own peril.
In his hilarious and captivating book, Stewart Lee Allen sets out to answer these profound questions. From the cliffhanging villages of Southern Yemen, where coffee was first cultivated eight hundred years ago, to a cavernous coffeehouse in Calcutta, the drinking spot for two of India's three Nobel Prize winners . . . from the posh salons of Vienna and Paris, where the true origin of the croissant is at last revealed, to the good ol' U.S.A., where something resembling brown water passes for coffee, Allen treks three quarters of the way around the world by train, rickshaw, cargo freighter—even mule—on a caffeinated quest to filter out the truth about the influence of coffee on society and history.
The evidence of java's influence on the world speaks for itself. When coffee was the sole provenance of the Arabs, their civilization flourished beyond all others. Once the Ottomans got hold of the bean, they became the most powerful nation on the planet. Its early appearance in Great Britain helped jump-start that nation's drive for world dominance (Lloyd's of London started in a coffeehouse). In Parisian cafés the French Revolution was born. During the Civil War, union soldiers were consuming the bean under the orders of President Jackson while the South, hopelessly decaffeinated by a naval embargo, went down to inglorious defeat.
Taking readers around the world, Stewart Lee Allen wittily proves that the world was wired long before the Internet. And those who deny the power of coffee (namely tea-drinkers), do so at their own peril.