Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca-Cola - Softcover

Thomas, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0091927048 ISBN 13: 9780091927042

Publisher: Ebury Press, 2009

Synopsis

Take a dangerously entertaining trip in search of the real story behind Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola and its logo are everywhere: in our homes, our workplaces, even our schools. It is a company that sponsors the Olympics, backs U.S. presidents and even re-brands Santa Claus. A truly universal product, it has even been served in space.

From Istanbul to Mexico City, Mark travels the globe investigating the stories and people Coca-Cola’s iconic advertising campaigns don’t mention. Child labourers in the sugar cane fields of El Salvador; Indian workers exposed to toxic chemicals; Colombian union leaders falsely accused of terrorism and jailed alongside the paramilitaries who want to kill them. And many more.

Provocative, funny and stirring, Belching Out the Devil investigates the truth behind one of the planet’s biggest brands.

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Thomas has worked as an activist/comedian for over twenty years. He has been awarded a UN Global Human Rights Defender Award. His three-year campaign to stop the building of the Ilisu dam in Turkey was ultimately successful and saved 78,000 Kurds from being displaced.

From The Washington Post:

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Justin Moyer A less-than-hilarious BBC comedian turned self-styled "libertarian anarchist," Mark Thomas once offered a bounty for George W. Bush's head. But this time, in his imperfectly written exposé "Belching Out the Devil," he takes on a cause without term limits: the Coca-Cola Co.'s shameful unwillingness to investigate its anti-union, anti-environment bottlers. "Coca-Cola is the biggest brand in the world," Thomas writes, "[with] a greater reach than a flu virus." After reading about this British Michael Moore's misadventures in Colombia (where Coke ignored the murders of union organizers), India (where its factories are depleting the water table) and Mexico (where bottlers illegally refused to sell to bodegas that stocked competing brands), one will agree with Thomas's indictment without relishing his endless supply of cheesy one-liners. "I feel like I've been beaten up by pesto," Thomas says after receiving a basil purification rubdown in a Mayan community that drinks Coke to, ahem, burp and expel evil spirits. As journalism, "Belching Out the Devil" does for soda what Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" did for the hamburger. As comedy, it's less "Some Like It Hot" than "Police Academy 4."
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ebury Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0091927048
• ISBN 13: 9780091927042
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384