In the revolutionary years between 1979 and 1992, it would have been difficult to find three political systems as different as El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, yet they found a common destination in democracy and free markets. Paige shows that the divergent political histories and the convergent outcome were shaped by one commodity: coffee.

In January 1927 Gus Comstock, a barbershop porter in the small Minnesota town of Fergus Falls, drank eighty cups of coffee in seven hours and fifteen minutes. The New York Times reported that near the end, amid a cheering crowd, the man's "gulps were labored, but a physician examining him found him in pretty good shape." The event was part of a marathon coffee-drinking spree set off two years earlier by news from the Commerce Department that coffee imports to the United States amounted to five hundred cups per year per person. In Coffee, Society, and Power in Latin America, a distinguished international group of historians, anthropologists, and sociologists examine the production, processing, and marketing of this important commodity. Using coffee as a common denominator and focusing on landholding patterns, labor mobilization, class structure, political power, and political ideologies, the authors examine how Latin American countries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries responded to the growing global demand for coffee. This unique volume offers an integrated comparative study of class formation in the coffee zones of Latin America as they were incorporated into the world economy. It offers a new theoretical and methodological approach to comparative historical analysis and will serve as a critique and counter to those who stress the homogenizing tendencies of export agriculture. The book will be of interest not only to experts on coffee economies but also to students and scholars of Latin America, labor history, the economics ofdevelopment, and political economy.

Boost your immune system with antioxidants, lower your risk for the flu, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and more—with ordinary everyday ingredients you can find at home—and make healthy green choices in today’s fast-changing world! “This book is a wake-up call to show coffee, an emerging ancient remedy, is now the ‘newest’ health food”—includes recipes and cures! (Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D.) Java facts you didn’t know . . . According to legend, an Ethiopian goat herder was the first to discover the energizing benefits of the coffee bean plant centuries ago. Drinking freshly ground coffee from whole beans can help lower the risk of heart disease, cancer (including breast, prostate and skin), cirrhosis, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease! Coffee is the number #1 source of antioxidants in the U.S. diet. Coffee can relieve a host of ailments, including asthma, dental woes, gallstones, headaches, short term memory loss, muscle pain, as well as help you slim down and shape up! Percolating with information about the world’s favorite superfood, as well as interviews with medical doctors, researchers, and coffee roasters, this intriguing book (with a jolt of past and present coffee culture) describes coffee types and blends, and flavored varieties (both regular and decaf), like chocolate, fruits, nuts, and spices. Discover why this potent elixir has gone from vice to virtue and how to incorporate coffee in Mediterranean-style, healthful recipes like Cappuccino Biscotti, Thai Coffee Spice Chicken Sates, Coffee Cheesecake and Maple Espresso Pudding (plus DIY espresso drinks). Also included are more than 50 home cures that fight seasonal affective disorder to fatigue, plus beauty and anti-aging treatments, and eco-friendly household uses—all made with coffee’s magical beans! “A cup or two of Joe every day is a good way to boost mood, energy and overall health.” —Julian Whitaker, M.D., founder of the Whitaker Wellness Institute

"With over 60 whole-foods-based recipes."