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POLITICAL ECONOMY & GLOBALIZATION
Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug. By Paul Gootenberg. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Pp. xvii, 442. Illustrations. Maps. Tables. Figures. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $ 24.95 paper.
Placed within what the author terms "the new history of drugs," written by professional historians during the 1990s and thereafter, this study by history professor Paul Gootenberg of Stony Brook University in New York documents the global and historical transformations experienced over more than a century by this peculiar mind-altering commodity derived from the Andean coca leaf, the divine plant of the Incas. First, the book looks at the invention and spread of Peruvian cocaine as a coveted world commodity in the years between 1850 and 1900, when it turned into a proud national industry and even experienced an export boom. Next, it examines cocaine's rapid decline into outcast status between 1900 and 1945, a process in which, contrary to its initial excitement about the substance, the United States played a leading role. Finally, it traces cocaine's international boom as an illegal drug between 1945 and 1975, involving the active participation of...