A Secret History of Coffee, Coca & Cola [Hardcover]

VERY SHORT LISTchoseA Secret History of Coffee, Coca & Colafor the #1 Spot on their November 16 Food E-mail

ABrain PickingsFavorite Food Book of 2012 and one of their Best Graphic Novels & Graphic Nonfiction of 2012

Featured inColumbia College Today's Bookshelf section

A straight forward and accessible text…Cortés’ highly detailed paintings call up concomitant issues and famous faces as well…In dense passages describing political payments between corporate interests and federal narcotics officials, the reproduction–in Cortés’ deft watercolors–of memos, official letters, and newspaper articles serves as an indictment of the rule of law with loopholes for the profit minded. This is an excellent introduction to the complexities of 'American interests,' the realities of corrupt rationale invoked in the pursuit of world health, and the need to take a longer view than the immediate to see how substance and substance abuse both share space and operate on different planes. Right and wrong are not black and white but form a gray of varying shades.
--Library Journal

“If you hate the War on Drugs, Ricardo Cortés should be one of your favorite illustrators.”
--Vice

“Astonishingly addictive and intoxicatingly revelatory,...Coffee, Coca & Colaoffers an impressively open-minded history lesson and an incredible look at the dark underbelly of American Capitalism . . . A stunning, hard cover coffee-table book for concerned adults, this captivating chronicle is a true treasure.”
--Comics Review(UK)

“This fascinating and beautifully illustrated piece of visual journalism . . . is as thoroughly researched and absorbingly narrated as it is charmingly illustrated.”
--Brain Pickings

Any food and culinary history holding will find this a livl£.