Released early this year to somewhat rapturous reception by critics (on the Publishers Weekly Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2020 list), this book firmly nestled itself in the back of my head, waiting for its time. That time arrived during the #nonfictionnovember20challenge, when I was required to find a book matching “book & beverage”theme of the day. Yet when I consulted with my Goodreads shelf for the “Coffeeland”,I was surprised how badly it fared with the actual readers! 3.57 of 5! I mean I wouldn’t even open a book rated that low. What happened?

Having read the book myself I now realize where does such dissatisfaction come from. Most likely people were mislead by the title and its similarity to other ‘microhistories’ of foodstuffs and objects. However, if you read the title literally it doesn’t offer much beyond what it says: Coffeeland, not coffee. And One man's dark empire, not humankind’s. Thus one could be rather prepared that the narrative won’t spread itself thin over continents and ages and will stay quite focused. (The good thing is that it actually does, but beautifully sparingly). So the land in question is El Salvador and the man – James Hill, a Briton, who settled thereto start coffee business.

It certainly is not a poetical page-turner for those in love with that drink. It is rather a David Graeber meets Rich Cohen’s “The Fish That Ate theWhale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King” kind of thing. Just like bananas&Guatemala dramatically match each other in Cohen’s book, Sedgewick does the same for coffee&El Salvador. And then some – namely, throwing in some economic history, class struggle and racial violence. No wonder fans of easy microhistories fainted. I, for one, didn’t understand what kind of beast I’m dealing with for quite a long time. Yet the book is precious and unique. It adds a very necessary depth dimension & historical flesh to those product commodities stories. It aptly links El Salvador with its neighbours, the USA and the wider world through the coffee business & agriculture, and determination of one dedicated man and his family.

Curiously, the story is somewhat less relevant now than it was maybe 40-50years ago: the rebel peasants’ party is now in power and coffee is no longer this country’s cash crop, constituting for only 5% of El Salvador’s exports (#1are T-shirts with 16%). ( )

This careful review of the central role coffee played in world events is indeed thorough. Not only does it cover the details of coffee from the plantations to the cup, but also its historical role in international relations, especially between the US and El Salvador. The parts of the book that focus on the fine points of coffee's development as a commodity in world commerce, its preparation, marketing, and uses by industry are particularly informative, especially to anyone who enjoys their "coffee break." Sedgewick avoids a dry accounting, however, by maintaining a focus on El Salvador and especially on James Hill, the most influential Latin American planter. Clearly, Hill was a complex man. He rose from poverty in the UK to become one of the wealthiest men in the Americas. He was intelligent, entrepreneurial, curious, and inventive. However, his main focus was always on profits. His only regard for the workers was how they might benefit his enterprise. Not unlike his peers at the time, his view of labor was as an asset for making profits. His motivations for humane treatment only derived from how such policies might benefit the success of his plantation. Clearly, this played a key role in the social and political unrest that El Salvador experienced throughout its history. ( )

Coffeeland: One Man's Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug by Augustine Sedgewick is a very highly recommended discourse on the history of coffee working from the perspective of the Hill family plantation in El Salvador.

Like many people in the world my day revolves around coffee, so I understand existentially why coffee is one of the most valuable commodities in the history of global capitalism. The fact that it is the leading source of the world's most popular drug, caffeine, is simply a bonus. In Coffeeland, Augustine Sedgewick traces the history of coffee consumption and its spread across the world.

The story is told through the life of a prominent planter in El Salvador, James Hill. Hill, a British ex-patriot, founded a coffee dynasty by shifting the focus from communal subsistence farming to growing a staple crop, coffee. "Adapting the innovations of the Industrial Revolution to plantation agriculture, Hill helped to turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history, a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality, and violence." The USA is the world's biggest coffee market, thanks in part to Hill's distribution plans and the invention of vacuum-sealed tin cans.

But this fascinating history is not only focused on Hill and El Salvador, it also covers a myriad of other topics that all tangentially relate back to coffee. Sedgewick covers the wide reaching world economic impact and political machinations of coffee. There are so many aspects of history that involves coffee, areas that I never really considered before reading this interesting narrative. The interplay of various aspects of history is really brought alive in Coffeeland.

This is a well-written and meticulously researched book. Sedgewick provides a copious amount of notes for each chapter, as well as a large selected biography. This is an excellent choice for those who enjoy history, especially if you also like coffee.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2020/04/coffeeland.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3257977383 ( )