The Devil's Cup : Coffee, the Driving Force in History

Stewart Lee Allen

ISBN 10: 1841951439 / ISBN 13: 9781841951430

Published by Import, Canongate Books, 2001

About this Item

Neuware - Can you handle mornings without a brew No Multiply that. Imagine an entire population under a cloud of lethargy, unable to kick start their days. Now introduce coffee. Bingo. The brain moves into over-drive and it's time for empire building.So goes Stewart Lee Allen's crazy theory. Only thing is, after retracing coffee's journey to world domination - by train, rickshaw, cargo freighter and donkey - he has plenty of evidence to back it up.Stewart Lee Allen has filtered out the richest beans from coffee's hot and frothy history . . . serving up a steamy, high-energy brew that will stimulate you more than a triple-strength espresso.

Seller Inventory # 9781841951430

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Devil's Cup : Coffee, the Driving Force in History
• Publisher: Import, Canongate Books
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1841951439
• ISBN 13: 9781841951430
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu

About this title

Synopsis

This comprehensive work provides an account of caffeine's impact on humankind. Beginning in Ethiopia, the author sails along the same route that carried the first beans to Yemen 1500 years ago, and literally travels the world in his mission to prove that coffee is the driving force in history.

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.