The devil's cup : coffee, the driving force in history - Hardcover

Stewart Lee Allen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569471746 ISBN 13: 9781569471746

Publisher: Soho Press, 2003

Synopsis

A wild ride through the history of coffee offers a humorous revisionist take on world events with this magic bean as the prime mover of everything from Napoleon's downfall to the prosperity of America

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

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? From the cliffhanging villages of Southern Yemen, where coffee beans were 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 Parisian salons and cafes where the French Revolution was born, to the roadside diners and chain restaurants of the good ol' U.S.A., where something resembling brown water passes for coffee, 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.

From the Back Cover:

"Stewart Lee Allen is the Hunter S. Thompson of coffee, offering a wild, caffeinated, gonzo tour of the World of the Magic Bean. His wry, adventurous prose delights, astonishes, amuses, and informs."
--MARK PENDERGRAST
Author of Uncommon Grounds:
The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World

About this edition

• Publisher: Soho Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1569471746
• ISBN 13: 9781569471746
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 231