"The epic story of the rise of coffee in the Americas, and how it connected and divided the modern world. Sedgewick reveals how the growth of coffee production, trade, and consumption went hand in hand with the rise of the scientific idea of energy as a universal force, which transformed thinking about how the human body works as well as ideas about the relationship of one person's work to another's. In the process, both El Salvador and the United States earned the nickname "Coffeeland," though for radically different reasons, and with consequences that reach into the present. This history of how coffee came to be produced by the world's poorest people and consumed by its richest opens up a unique perspective on how the modern globalized world works, ultimately provoking a reconsideration of what it means to be connected to far-away people and places through the familiar things that make up our everyday lives"-- Provided by publisher.

Prologue : One hundred years of coffee -- The perfect symbol of Islam -- Cottonopolis -- A state of constant eruption -- Eel -- The Hills brothers -- The sign of Apollo -- A god on the make -- The mill -- Bad luck -- The taster -- Special work -- The history of holes -- The glass cage -- The hunger plantation -- Love in the time of coffee -- The truth about coffee -- The American cure -- The coffee question -- The paradise of eating -- Inside the red circle -- An exceedingly good lunch -- The slaughter -- Pile it high and sell it cheap -- Behind the cup -- The war -- Past lives.