Winner of the 2022 Cherasco International Prize
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Pick
Best Books of 2020: El Faro
Best Summer Reads: The Telegraph, The Tatler, The Irish Examiner
A Book of the Week: Smithsonian, The National Book Review, The Week, and Lit Hub’s Book Marks
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, April 2020
One of the most anticipated books of 2020: Publishers Weekly, The Guardian, and The Financial Times
"How Coffee Became a Modern Necessity,” Wall Street Journal , April 4, 2020.
“The Mind-Altering Everyday Necessity,” The American (UK), April 7, 2020.
“The Story Behind the World’s Love of Coffee,” Sunday Post (Scotland), May 14, 2020.
“The world does not run on money, love, or sex. It runs on coffee.”
—Pedro Marta Santos, Sábado (Portugal)
“Coffee is indeed our civilization—and a lot of people have paid for it.”
—Brett Evans, Canberra Times (Australia)
"Thoroughly engrossing . . . [Sedgewick's] literary gifts and prodigious research make for a deeply satisfying reading experience studded with narrative surprise."
“Sedgewick’s gripping book exposes the dark heart of what goes into making a ubiquitous commodity, cherished every morning, enshrined in the workplace and appreciated after a meal. It provides a devastating answer to the question: ‘What does it mean to be connected to faraway people and places through everyday things?’”
—Colin Greenwood, The Spectator
“A beautifully written, engaging and sprawling portrait of how coffee made modern El Salvador, while it also helped to remake consumer habits worldwide … compelling.”
—Lizabeth Cohen, The New York Times
“Extremely wide-ranging and well researched … In a tradition of protest literature rooted more in William Blake than Marx.”
“Sedgewick’s book is a parable of how a commodity can link producers, consumers, markets and politics in unexpected ways … an eye-opening, stimulating brew. “
“Energising … [Coffeeland] goes far beyond those “commodity biographies” that were so popular two decades ago, the ones with one-word titles … Sedgewick’s great achievement is to clothe macroeconomics in warm, breathing flesh … excellent.”
“Hugely detailed … staggeringly well researched … peopled with vivid characters and scenes … a serious book.”
"Addictive … moves almost cinematically between the plantations of El Salvador and theories of economics.”
—Riikka Aaltonen, Talouselämä (FInland)
“A pocket history of globalisation itself … remarkable. ”
—Tim Smith-Laing, The Telegraph
“Magisterial and illuminating.”
—Joseph Nevins, NACLA Report on the Americas
“A bittersweet triumph.”
“Highly readable, provocative.”
—Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs
“Massively ambitious.”
"A cautionary tale.”
“Vivid.”
—Michael Upchurch, The Boston Globe
“Rich.”
—Stuart Ferguson, Wall Street Journal
“Strong.”
—Barry Didcock, The Herald (Scotland)
“Powerful.”
—Judith Hawley, Times Literary Supplement
“Adrenaline-fuelled.”
—Oliver Balch, Literary Review (UK)
“Exhilarating.’
—Richard Fitzpatrick, Irish Examiner
“Explosive.”
—Ambassador R. Viswanathan, The Wire (India)
“Stirring.”
—Jenny Björkman, Svenska Dagbledat (Sweden)
“Stylish.”
“Entertaining.”
—David Pilling, The Financial Times
"Fascinating.”
“Thought-provoking and gracefully written . . . The breadth of Sedgewick’s analysis of coffee’s place in the world economy astonishes, as does his ability to bring historical figures to life . . . [an] eye-opening history.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"A broad-ranging, often surprising study . . . An intriguing account that darkens the depths of that daily cup of joe."
"Fascinating . . . Coffeeland is a rich and immensely readable journey into an aspect of 21st-century life worth learning more about."
“How did a cup of coffee become the everyday addiction of millions? In this impressively wide-ranging, personality-filled history, Augustine Sedgewick untangles the routes that carried coffee from the slopes of El Salvador’s volcanoes to the shelves of US supermarkets. To enter Coffeeland is to visit a realm of ruthless entrepreneurs, hard-working laborers, laboratory chemists, and guerrilla fighters. You’ll leave with your appreciation for your morning brew forever enriched.”
—Maya Jasanoff, author of The Dawn Watch
“Coffeeland will set a new standard for the study of both commodities and hemispheric relations. Augustine Sedgewick’s book is an innovative study of work, of the work involved to produce a drink needed by workers to keep working. Sedgewick treats coffee not so much as a material commodity but rather more like intangible energy, and relates it, in provocative and convincing ways, to other combustible liquids that created the North American economy, from the fields of Central America to the factories of the northern United States. "
—Greg Grandin, author of The End of the Myth
“Capitalism has remade the global countryside in radical ways. With the end of plantation slavery, new forms of that transformation emerged: Hunger supplanted shackles; the law replaced the master. Coffeeland brilliantly chronicles this most consequential revolution by telling the global history of one family. After reading Augustine Sedgewick’s fast-paced book you will never be able to think about your morning coffee in quite the same way.”
—Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton