Overview

This is a new view of cocaine's expansive history.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.

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An outstanding contribution to the history of narcotics and to the new global history . Andean Cocaine expands our knowledge of the commodity chain and global markets .[It] is an essential work for any scholar or student of the histories of narcotics, Latin America, and economics. - H-Net Reviews

Andean Cocaine is an important intellectual achievement. Gootenberg uses a fluent narrative and a new and sophisticated interpretation to discuss the link between local and global events and to explain the roles played by unequal actors and institutions. A first-class book. <br> -- Marcos Cueto, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima, Peru

An outstanding contribution to the history of narcotics and to the new global history . Andean Cocaine expands our knowledge of the commodity chain and global markets .[It] is an essential work for any scholar or student of the histories of narcotics, Latin America, and economics. <br>- H-Net Reviews

The anti-cocainism that arose in the United States transformed cocaine into a global threat in the first part of the 20th century. . . . This huge work untangles the multiple mechanisms of cocaine's social, local, and global construction, which transmuted a medical drug and commodity into a world menace with a war declared against it. Gootenberg has written a history that will make history. <br>- European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Author Information

PAUL GOOTENBERG is professor of history at Stony Brook University in New York and author or editor of four other books, including Between Silver and Guano: Commercial Policies and the State in Postindependence Peru.

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