The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse

by Brian Cowan

What induced the British to adopt foreign coffee-drinking customs in the seventeenth century? Why did an entirely new social institution, the coffeehouse, emerge as the primary place for consumption of this new drink? In this lively book, Brian Cowan locates the answers to these questions in the particularly British combination of curiosity, commerce, and civil society. Cowan provides the definitive account of the origins of coffee drinking and coffeehouse society, and in so doing he reshapes our understanding of the commercial and consumer revolutions in Britain during the long Stuart century.

Britain’s virtuosi, gentlemanly patrons of the arts and sciences, were profoundly interested in things strange and exotic. Cowan explores how such virtuosi spurred initial consumer interest in coffee and invented the social template for the first coffeehouses. As the coffeehouse evolved, rising to take a central role in British commercial and civil society, the virtuosi were also transformed by their own invention.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Food, Food History, Food and Drink, Academic, Cultural

364 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2005

Reviews

[Anders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmmm... I read this for a class looking at social change through the lens of the rise of coffee & sugar. This book documents an important development, the rise of coffeehouses and the attendant shifts in the modes and meanings of coffee consumption, and specifically the public performances of such. Cowan's argument is problematic in that he grants basically all the agency in the rise of coffee culture to this supposedly fully formed class, the virtuosi, an argument I found sort of vaguely unfulfilling. Besides that though, the documentation and research is thorough and fascinating, and he is really careful about how much importance he assigns to coffeehouses in the social, cultural, and political change... they are neither backdrop to nor the most important avatar of the development of a public sphere or new culture of industrial capitalism, he discusses coffeehouses as simply an arena in which these meanings were negotiated. All in all, a nice historical treatment of an interesting topic. Not without its faults but all in all, useful. Though I must admit that it is forbiddingly academic to the casual reader.

[Orlando · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but dense and unnecessarily long

Interesting summary of the adoption of coffee in British life and the subsequent rise of coffee houses. But the text was pretty dry and the book was longer than what it needed to be to get across its core ideas.

[Libellus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure, I have now taken three courses with Cowan. For his seminar on European food history, he made us read Part I-III of his book. Interesting commentary on coffee and the social history of the coffeehouse. The writing is a tad bit heavy, but I loved the heavy referencing to primary sources.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, it is not really about coffee, but rather a spirit of adventure crossed by moderately rebellious college students blended with professional scholars and the social mores that grew alongside the loosely defined coffeehouse.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book on Coffee. Who could resist I couldn't.

The ironic thing is that even though the books talks about Coffee houses in England up until the 1700's it strikes me as being timely even today.

The main thing is that the Government tried to shut down the coffee houses or the newspapers they supported as fake news. With the current crying of fake news today for stories the government doesn't like it is very similar.

I recommend this book for a read over a good cup of coffess and a newspaper

[Anie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't a popular history book -- this is a genuinely academic book, though to my mind a very pleasantly readable one. It's less about coffee in the experiential sense and much more about coffee in the "how public spaces shape and are shaped by their society" sense. So, not really about coffee at all, but about the people who drink it. If you don't know anything about English history, it'll be sore going for you, but if you're familiar enough with mercantilism and the Restoration, you'll get a good amount out of the historical implications.

[Serenity · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tough read, and on prose alone I would probably give this book a mere one or two stars.

However . . . the research that went into the work and the authors fresh insights make this book a real gem. This book is not just a history of coffee but rather a cultural history of the rise of middling England. These elements of the book are five stars.

[Sholeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This drags in places but overall really interesting if you are interested in coffee and british history

[Kiryl Samartsau · Rating 5 out of 5]

That IS a research. Comprehensive. Thorough. Brilliant. A complete account of social history of coffee drink in 17th-century Britain.

[alejota]

que el pdf no deje ver las imágenes duro. Creo que podría haber sido más corto la verdad

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

no review because I have to write a book report on it for uni lol (but if you're interested in the topic it's super interesting!)

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hard at it is for us today to imagine a world without coffee, it was even ahrder for early modern Britons to imagine what a world with coffee would be like. it is a testament to their flexible imaginations that they succeeded in creating a coffee world of their own." (p. 263)

I don't even like coffee and I found this study absolutely fascinating. How coffee could grow into something so fundamental in 17th century Britain, when it was unknown before, the growth of the British coffeehouse and the public life associated with it; and finally the political role these places played (and didn't play).

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

"To learn why and how seventeenth-century English consumers came to desire a strange new drink such as coffee can take us a long way toward understanding the origins of the consumer revolution of the long eighteenth century... Curiosity, commerce, and civil society provide the three major themes through which this book explores the rise of coffee and coffeehouses."

[Sarah Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a pretty in-depth economic and social history of coffee and proves my point - I'll read anything if it has food in it. It's actually a pretty easy read though and I learned some interesting things. I recommend this one.

[Nanto]

buku menarik. info awalnya dari tulisan di blog ini.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really entertaining and interesting study on the origins of the coffeehouse in Britain.