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Article: Brain Brew: how coffee fueled Voltaire's Candide, Newton's theory of gravity, and Juan Valdez's modern woes.(Coffee: A Dark History)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- June 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Coffee: A Dark History By Antony Wild WW.Norton, $25.95
Coffee is the drug that changed my life. Without its brain-perking effects, it's doubtful that I could have passed astronomy in college, read The Wealth of Nations cover to cover, or made a favorable first impression on my girlfriend's parents despite suffering from a colossal hangover. In fact, this very review would be immeasurably harder to write were it not for the steaming cup of milk-tinged joe to my laptop's left.
But I seem to have derived less benefit from my addiction than many other habitual caffeine ingesters whom Antony Wild describes in Coffee: A Dark History. A British coffee merchant ...