Coffee: A Dark History Book

Coffee: A Dark History is a great feat of story-telling and of research. I will look for an opportunity to buy this book. Antony Wild thrillingly pursues the hard-to-isolate history of coffee rather than succumbing to "the number of myths that are ritually aired by the coffee trade to keep the curious at bay" (pg. 17).

Biology and chemistry, anthropology and linguistics, history and government, theology of all kinds and economics, painfully real or theoretical - these are but some of the fields traversed by the reader of what is really a non-fiction novel by the time it reaches its thesis. This is a thrilling work of philosophy by an author who writes objectively, not as a coffee expert who has read a little history or a biologist co-opting cultural data to the extent that it serves his argument, but as an informed and critical thinker tracking a profound idea that happens also to be a powerful drug and one of the world's most important commodities. Despite the unorthodox resistance to citation and minor errors of logic and grammar, Coffee tells the history of this idea, this substance, through a series of breath-taking tales supported by the best evidence possible.

There are no controversial claims, to my way of thinking, throughout the entire work, but if there were, the omission of source citations would prove frustrating. By acknowledging this "largely stylistic" decision (pg. vii), Wild has set the tone of his "dark history," and claimed authority over his information where, had he not acknowledged this choice, he might have weakened the foundation of the entire book instead.

Notwithstanding the authority he thus obtains, one could easily disagree with Wild's thinking at any point because he writes not definitive proofs but passionate arguments. The most fascinating one to me is the connection of coffee to the evolution of humanity itself, viewed through the lens of their common location in the highlands of Ethiopia, but far more substantial than that one coincidence (pgs. 17-21). Another delightful argument drives the chemical makeup of caffeine right into the worlds of philosophy and then literature in the person of Goethe, and further illuminates a parallel with research on the effects of caffeine on spiders through his imagery - the spiders are both objects of research and literary devices (pgs. 205-206, 208). There is no end to the tales of how coffee, in its deliciously pure complexity, carries an indelible record of trade, power, diplomacy, corruption, enslavement, poverty, and hope. It is a record of earth itself, the varieties of ways it is prepared encodes human history, and our love for it, tantamount to a need, reveals what is universal about our way of life in spite of - or through - the specificity of coffee varieties.

Because of his command of vast amounts of tangible and intangible information, data and arguments from many perspectives, Wild is able to make the best possible argument at every turn. When anecdote provides the best evidence, that is what he uses, referencing the $350,000-yearly back-up exchange that allowed the New York Coffee, Sugar, & Cocoa Exchange to resume business immediately after being destroyed in the World Trade Center attacks to prove the significance of coffee as a commodity (pg. 8). He also uses the death of dismissed coffee plantation workers trying to enter the U.S. as evidence of coffee's role in the devastation that has led to this social problem (pg. 237). In both cases, these examples bear more credibility and more potency than statistics or citations of experts might. When an analysis of a nation's economy or of the practices of the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would be best, he uses those. When culture will speak for itself, he references, for example, the place in Dutch society of the novel "Max Havelaar" (pgs. 258-260). Even semantics, usually understood to mean the avoidance of a difficult question through technicalities of language, proves the clearest, most interesting way to teach the reader about the make-up and history of espresso: "a wonderful system for making good coffee, but not a good system for making wonderful coffee" (pg. 271). It is a memorable literary device, rather than some kind of trick, that expresses Wild's point both profoundly and concisely. In short, Wild always has at his disposal the optimal way to make the essential point.

Only once, in his country-specific breakdown of the Western Hemisphere, do sweeping conclusions, elsewhere based on broad and vetted analysis of practically the whole world, become detached from the solid logic of the book overall. The section on Panama makes several statements about the U.S. treatment of that country which are probably true but not credible based only on what is written there. In addition and in stark contrast to the rest of the book, it says nothing about coffee except that coffee is grown there (pg. 245). Analysis of "the doleful consequences of U.S. hegemony" is complemented by location-specific names and information in the following pages, but no brilliant argument like what can be see elsewhere (pg. 234). There are many interesting insights into the fallacies of U.S. and Western policy regarding Central and South America, particularly the abuse of the Colombian environment, as revealed not by campaigners but through the coffee trade itself, but they should be fully expounded or not discussed at all rather than lightly mentioned. This seems to be a case of over-polishing because the writing here has sacrificed key substance in the interest of flow. That is, the substance seems to have been revised away.
A few nearly negligible problems do exist in the writing. One is the curious description of "land lying vacant" when "lying fallow" was clearly intended (pg. 248), and another is the illogical "ex-alumni" (pg. 238). "Status quo ante existing before the date of the reforms" is a bizarre error of editing (pg. 238); so is the duplication of "only" (pg. 173) and the missing preposition on pg. 152. A misplaced modifier on pg. 159 would cause confusion as to whether "the Exile" referred to a person or an event had it been placed in less clearly established context, but there is no reason not to employ proper grammar, even if the meaning might be apparent, anyway. Likewise, a missing comma also disrupts the flow: "The coffee houses of England could make no such claim to be the first secular public meeting places for taverns had been around for hundreds of years" (pg. 86).

"Coffee: A Dark History" provides a provocative yet satisfying account of coffee as almost everyone enjoys it: a drink we enjoy, something we all have in common, a many-faceted problem. Because the unassailable array of data, historical research, first-hand experiences, and cultural references in combination with expertise on the coffee plant and its products is not presented as a work of persuasion, it does not require the reader's agreement in order to be appreciated as a work of literature. It is precisely this quality that makes the book so brilliantly persuasive.