In this captivating book, Stewart Lee Allen treks three-quarters of the way around the world on a caffeinated quest to answer these profound questions: Did the advent of coffee give birth to an enlightened western civilization? Is coffee, indeed, the substance that drives history? From the cliffhanging villages of Southern Yemen, where coffee beans were first cultivated eight hundred years ago, to a cavernous coffeehouse in Calcutta, the drinking spot for two of India’s three Nobel Prize winners . . . from Parisian salons and cafés where the French Revolution was born, to the roadside diners and chain restaurants of the good ol’ U.S.A., where something resembling brown water passes for coffee, Allen wittily proves that the world was wired long before the Internet. And those who deny the power of coffee (namely tea-drinkers) do so at their own peril.

斯图尔德•李•艾伦，美国纽约人，自封社会人类学者，专门研究咖啡。出生于美国加利福尼亚州，曾在加尔各答、巴黎、加德满都和悉尼居住。他的经历多采多姿，曾做过葡萄园工人、剧场导演、服务员、掘墓人、庞克作曲人，同时也是一名作家。他的作品刊登于《琼斯夫人》杂志、《洛杉矶周报》、《湾区卫报》，另有著作《恶魔花园》。