Mark Pendergrast

From the Publisher: Uncommon Grounds is the definitive history of coffee-from its discovery on an Ethiopian mountainside to the age of Starbucks and the coffee crisis of the twenty-first century. A sweeping epic, Uncommon Grounds uses coffee production, trade, and consumption as a window through which to view broad historical themes: the clash and blending of cultures, slavery, the rise of brand marketing, global inequities, fair trade, revolutions,...

For God, Country and Coca-Cola is the unauthorized history of the great American soft drink and the company that makes it. From its origins as a patent medicine in Reconstruction Atlanta through its rise as the dominant consumer beverage of the American century, the story of Coke is as unique, tasty, and effervescent as the drink itself. With vivid portraits of the entrepreneurs who founded the company - and of the colorful cast of hustlers, swindlers,...

The author of Uncommon Grounds offers "a rich and resonantly detailed account of an unlikely partnership" that redefined the concept of fair trade (Coffee Review). The Akha hill Tribe of Thailand has a long, tumultuous history. Politics, economics, and land development consistently worked against the Akha's desire to move away from their dependency on opium production and create a stable future for their children. That all changed in 2006 when Canadian...

"Everyone knows the story of Jerry Sandusky, the serial pedophile, the Monster. But what if that story is wrong? What if the former Penn State football coach and founder of the Second Mile is an innocent man convicted in the midst of a moral panic fed by the sensationalistic media, police trawling, and memory-warping psychotherapy? The Most Hated Man in America reads like a true crime psychological thriller and is required reading for everyone from...