''Coffeeland: One Man's Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug'' is a 2020 non-fiction book by Augustine Sedgewick. It's a social, economic, and political history of the production and use of

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...

and its effect on society — "A history that charts the 400-year transformation of coffee from a mysterious Ottoman custom to an everyday necessity for many." This is the first book by Sedgewick (born 1979, Portland, Maine) who earned his Ph.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. He had previously published articles in the journals ''International Labor and Working-Class History'' and ''History of the Present''.

Michael Pollan Michael Kevin Pollan (; born February 6, 1955) is an American author and journalist, who is currently Professor of the Practice Non-Fiction and the first Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer at Harvard University. Concurrently, he is the Knight Professo ...

published an extensive review of ''Coffeeland'' in ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

''. Pollan's review describes how Sedgewick ties the advent of coffee to the rise of modern capitalism, as its replacement of alcohol as workers' common workplace beverage allowed the burgeoning white-collar cohart to work longer hours with improved focus on office tasks, coffee being "a form of instant energy — a work drug", this becoming the basis of the

coffee break A break at work (or work-break) is a period of time during a shift in which an employee is allowed to take time off from their job. It is a type of downtime. There are different types of breaks, and depending on the length and the employer' ...

— an institution originated to benefit the employer (by energizing workers), not the employee. Sedgewick also focuses on the production history of coffee. He details the story of James Hill, an Englishman who applied industrial methods — sometimes brutal — to the growing of coffee in El Salvador, creating a rigid

monoculture In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time. Monoculture is widely used in intensive farming and in organic farming: both a 1,000-hectare/acre cornfield and a 10-ha/acre field of organic kale are ...

of coffee and a pool of native workers driven by hunger — their native food sources having been deliberately destroyed — to work the coffee plantations. "Eventually, he even recoiled at the sound of workers' laughter, because it meant they were squandering time and energy that belonged to him." ''Coffeeland'' was also reviewed by ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'', ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'',

Goodreads Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and read ...

, and '' Kirkus Reviews''.

References

21st-century history books American history books 2020 non-fiction books History books about agriculture Works about coffee 19th century in El Salvador Economic history of El Salvador Allen Lane (imprint) books {{coffee-stub