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Caffeine

How Caffeine Created the Modern World

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Caffeine

By: Michael Pollan
Narrated by: Michael Pollan
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About this listen

Michael Pollan, known for his best-selling nonfiction audio, including The Omnivores Dilemma and How to Change Your Mind, conceived and wrote Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World as an Audible Original. In this controversial and exciting listen, Pollan explores caffeine’s power as the most-used drug in the world - and the only one we give to children (in soda pop) as a treat.

Pollan takes us on a journey through the history of the drug, which was first discovered in a small part of East Africa and within a century became an addiction affecting most of the human species. Caffeine, it turns out, has changed the course of human history - won and lost wars, changed politics, dominated economies. What’s more, the author shows that the Industrial Revolution would have been impossible without it. The science of how the drug has evolved to addict us is no less fascinating. And caffeine has done all these things while hiding in plain sight! Percolated with Michael Pollan’s unique ability to entertain, inform, and perform, Caffeine is essential listening in a world where an estimated two billion cups of coffee are consumed every day.

©2019 Michael Pollan (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC. Food & Wine Social Sciences Wine & Beverages Modern Fiction
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A must listen if you are a regular caffeine consumer ! I really enjoyed listening. I won’t be given up caffeine just yet but I will ensure I drink less and perhaps start to use it in a micro dose format or just drink more consciously.

An excellent listen

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As with all of Michael Pollan’s books, this short study is well written and so interesting. The author makes a great narrator too.

Well written, lively and interesting

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A short story of caffeine's journey through the ages and the relationship it has had with the humans species and continually has with us...

Short and almost Sweet

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I can’t put my finger on it, but I found this short Audible original disappointing.

Tom Standage’s account on coffee in A History of the World in Six Glasses (heavily cited here) was much more entertaining and informative for me.

As disappointing as coffee served in foam cups

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This is one of the best things I listened to for a while. Micheal tells the story of coffee, combining his personal experience using it along with a rich and interesting history of it.

Great summary of everything about coffee

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