Product Description
Illuminating a hidden and fascinating chapter in the history of globalization, Paul Gootenberg chronicles the rise of one of the most spectacular and now illegal Latin American exports: cocaine. Gootenberg traces cocaine's history from its origins as a medical commodity in the nineteenth century to its repression during the early twentieth century and its dramatic reemergence as an illicit good after World War II. Connecting the story of the drug's transformations is a host of people, products, and processes: Sigmund Freud, Coca-Cola, and Pablo Escobar all make appearances, exemplifying the global influences that have shaped the history of cocaine. But Gootenberg decenters the familiar story to uncover the roles played by hitherto obscure but vital Andean actors as well--for example, the Peruvian pharmacist who developed the techniques for refining cocaine on an industrial scale and the creators of the original drug-smuggling networks that decades later would be taken over by Colombian traffickers. Andean Cocaine proves indispensable to understanding one of the most vexing social dilemmas of the late twentieth-century Americas: the American cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and, in its wake, the seemingly endless U.S. drug war in the Andes.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 2 reviews)

Cocaine's first full-length biography by ROROTOKO (www.rorotoko.com)

5 Stars
August 18, 2009
"Andean Cocaine" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Gootenberg's book interview ran here as cover feature on June 26, 2009.

Andean Cocaine review by The Mill (New York, NY)

5 Stars
March 19, 2009
At the beginning of Andean Cocaine, author Paul Gootenberg sheepishly admits that his current field of study has been met with some gentle teasing on behalf of his colleagues. As Gootenberg is an academic whose previous research focused on the economics of Peruvian bat guano, one can imagine how his investigation into the origins of the cocaine trade might be dismissed as a pop curiosity. Dozens of books have been published about the global coke industry; more often than not they focus on the more salacious, sexy or violent elements of the business. Andean Cocaine is the rare book about drugs that acknowledges, but gracefully transcends, cultural and moral interpretations of these medicines and recreational hazards. The author's experience with economics and historical methodology sets the foundation for a centuries' worth of research. Gootenberg follows cocaine from its birth as a revolutionary surgical tool and cure-all-tonic, to the backlash that inspired an international ban, and ultimately how these factors combined to ignite the gargantuan syndicates of illicit production and distribution. Along the way, the infamous white powder was touched by icons of world history. Sigmund Freud, the Coca-Cola Company, and of course governments and pharmaceutical empires all play roles in the story, even before the arrival of the criminal cartels that provoked (or perhaps, were created because of) a multi-billion dollar world war of prohibition. Andean Cocaine is exhaustively researched, yet it's written with enough spring to keep the history alive and relevant. The book should be regarded as one of the definitive documents in the genre of drug histories, and it is irreplaceable in telling the particular under-explored history of cocaine. How the stimulant has shaped world history is significant, surprising, and makes for a good read.

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