The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug

by Bennett Alan Weinberg, Bonnie K. Bealer

Overview

Caffeine is the world's most popular drug! Almost all of us start our day with a jolt of caffeine from coffee, tea or cola. And many of us crave chocolate when we're stressed or depressed. Without it we're lethargic, head-achy and miserable. Why? Why do we crave caffeine? How much do we really know about our number one drug of choice? Here is the first natural, cultural, and artistic history of our favorite mood enhancer--how it was discovered, its early uses, and the unexpected parts it has played in medicine, religion, painting, poetry, learning, and love. Weinberg and Bealer tell an intriguing story of a remarkable substance that has figured prominently in the exchanges of trade and intelligence among nations and whose most common sources, coffee, tea, and chocolate, have been both promoted as productive of health and creativity and banned as corrupters of the body and mind or subverters of social order. Some Highlights From the World of Caffeine Balzac's addiction to caffeine drove him to eat coffee, as some schizophrenic patients are observed to do today, and may have killed him Mary Tuke breaks the male monopoly on tea in England in 1725 The ways caffeine functions as a smart pill Goethe's responsibility for the discovery of caffeine Did a mini Ice Age help bring coffee, tea and chocolate to popularity in Europe? What is the mystery of coffee's origin? As good as gold: the stories of how caffeine, in its various forms, was used as cash in China, Africa, Central America and Egypt What does the civet cat have to do with the most costly coffee on earth today? The World of Caffeine is a captivating tale of art and society -- from India to Balzac to cybercafes -- and the ultimate caffeine resource.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781135958176
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/23/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Bennett Alan Weinberg is a medical and science writer. He is also chairman of his own advertising and public relations firm whose clients include several of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies.
Bonnie K.Bealer is a researcher and writer trained in psychology and anthropology. The authors live in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Dedication and Acknowledgements Table of Contents Overview: Caffeine Encounters Prologue: The Discovery of Caffeine Part I: Caffeine in History Part 2 Europe Wakes Up to Caffeine Part III: The Culture of Caffeine Part IV: The Natural History of Caffeine Caffeine and Health Epilogue: A toast to the Future Appendix A: The London Coffee House During the Commonwealth and Restoration Appendix b: Supplementary Tables Appendix C: Additional Studies of Caffeine's Physical Effects Appendix D: Methodological Pitfalls Selected Bibliography and List of References Sources Notes Index

Editorial Reviews

With impressive felicity, Weinberg and Bealer marshal the forces of history, chemistry, medicine, cultural anthropology, psychology, philosophy and even a little religion to tell caffeine's complicated story…fascinating, generously illustrated volume.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Most Americans use some form of caffine on a daily basis, and it's the only addictive substance which is freely available almost everywhere. World Of Caffine provides the first cultural and social history of caffine, examining the science and health facts surrounding caffine and how caffine spread around the world. The historical and social backgrounds are fascinating.

A savory and spirited cultural history of caffeine, with summaries of pertinent scientific and medical research on the properties and effects of the world's drug of choice. Weinberg and Bealer (freelance writers with backgrounds, respectively, in the hard and social sciences) fill their amazing book to the brim with a challenging mix of history, science, medicine, anthropology, sociology, and popular culture, then add a dash of humor, a pinch of polemic, and a dollop of healthful skepticism. Caffeine, a"bitter, highly toxic white powder, readily soluble in boiling water," was first isolated and named in 1819 by a young German physician. But it had been employed as far back as the middle of the 15th century, when the first coffee was brewed in southern Arabia. By the middle of the 16th century,"coffeehouses [had sprung] up in every major city in Islam"; soon, travelers to the Middle East sampled the drink, enjoyed its effects, and took it back to their own countries. The authors then focus on tea, establishing 220 b.c. as"genuinely the earliest reference" to the beverage and speculating that the Chinese may have learned to brew it from people in northern India or southeast Asia. They trace the other principal dietary source of caffeine, chocolate, to the Mesoamerican Olmecs, who flourished from 1500 to 400 b.c. and first used the cacao bean to make a chocolate drink. Chronicling the spread of these substances to Europe, Weinberg and Bealer note that coffee was often touted for its supposed medicinal properties ("comforts the Brain and dries up Crudities in the Stomach," claimed one 18th-century publication). In the most engaging portion here, a long section dealing withtheculture of caffeine, the authors trace its social role. Wisely, they delay until the final chapters slower-going discussions of the chemistry of caffeine and the immense amount of medical research devoted to it. Well-researched, briskly written, full-bodied, and flavorful. (50 halftones and line drawings)

Kirkus Reviews

"[A] marvelous new book." — Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker
"With a flavor reminiscent of Daniel Boorstin's The Discoverers, The World of Caffeine tells an intriguing history of a drug that many people seem unable to live without. The book's engaging, easy style allows readers to zip through it like a jolt of good java, or savor it slowly like a good cup of tea." — The Washington Post Book World
"The alchemists of old only dreamed of turning dross into gold, but the scientists who followed them succeeded in converting caffeine into ideas. In this new information age the conversion continues at an even faster pace, and this very useful book helps us to understand how it all happened." — James Trager, author of The Food Chronology and The People's Chronology
"This well-researched and entertaining book, The World of Caffeine, contains a wealth of facinating cultural and historical andcdotes and scientific facts which provide a unique perspective on the world's most commonly used psychoactive drug." — Roland R. Griffiths, PhD, a leading caffeine researcher, John Hopkins University School of Medicine
"With impressive felicity, Weinberg and Bealer marshal the forces of history, chemistry, cultural anthropology, psychology, philosophy, and even a little religion to tell caffeine's complicated story." — The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"...a magnificently researched book filled with revelations about what has become, for many of us, a routine part of each day's consumption." — The Wall Street Journal
"Readers who, like Prufrock, measure out their lives in coffee spoons will appreciate the background on their drug of choice provided by science writers Weinberg and Bealer." — Booklist
"A savory and spirited cultural history of caffeine...Well- researched, briskly written, full-bodied, and flavorful." — Kirkus Reviews
"From early warnings against the evils of caffeine to curiosities about coffeehouse culture, this book holds everything we ever wanted to know — and then some — about the drug that helps many of us keep up with the fast pace of our lives." — Boston Herald
"[Weinberg and Bealer] make the most of their learned backgrounds to ponder all manner of facts and fictions about the bean and beverage." — Toronto Star
"This well researched book examines the myth of caffeine and gives an excellent insight into this fascinating product, its orgins and history." — Thomas Meinl, President, The Julius Meinl Group, Vienna
"[Weinberg and Bealer] remind us in their marvelous new book . . . there is no drug quite as effortlessly adaptable as caffeine, the Zelig of chemical stimulants." — Malcolm Gladwell,The New Yorker
"The text is rich with information, yet it is easy and pleasant to read." — Peter B. Lewis,PhD, New England Journal of Medicine
"Weinberg and Bealer provide an in-depth scholarly work that is remarkably readable and informative. The World of Caffeine will provide something for nearly everyone." — T.D. DeLapp, Choice
"I love coffee, I love tea, I love the book on its history... a fascinating look at caffeine in its various forms, and very effectively shows its popularity in a historic, social, and pharmacological context." — Jock Murray, Comptes Rendus

From the Publisher