"Michelle Craig McDonald tells the much neglected story of the early history of coffee before the rise of the great producers in Central and South America. Coffee Nation extends Atlantic history beyond the American Revolutionary War. It is a major contribution to the history of commodities and to the economic history of the United States."

Dr. Andrew Jackson
O’Shaughnessy

Author of The Men Who Lost
America: British Leadership, the
American Revolution, and the
Fate of the Empire

"In an accessible, often witty narrative, Michelle Craig McDonald deftly traces the history of the production, distribution, and consumption of this popular, profitable commodity that Americans decided early on they could not live without—even if they had to depend on other nations to get it. Coffee Nation will be a must read in commodities history."

Dr. Zara Anishanslin

Author of Portrait of a Woman
in Silk: Hidden Histories of the
British Atlantic World

"Based on a remarkable grasp of archival and printed materials, and written with engaging verve, Coffee Nation explains how coffee became an inescapable feature of North American private and social life by the years of the early Republic. But it also provides a fuller understanding of the emergence of North American identity...an invaluable addition to our understanding of the rise of global commodities and an example of cultural history at its very best."

Dr. James Walvin

Author of A World Transformed:
Slavery in the Americas and the
Origins of Global Power

“As something of an old hand in the history of coffee enterprise, I don’t very often discover a new work that so effectively answers questions I’ve had for decades. Michelle Craig McDonald accomplishes this and much more in her multifaceted study of the coffee trade and consumption from the early 18th to late 19th centuries in what became the United States. Beyond this, however, she managed to produce an accessible, engaging text based on deep archival research, a gem for both general readers and scholars in her own field.”

Full review here.

Dr. Lowell Gudmundson, Professor Emeritus of Latin American Studies and History, Mount Holyoke University

Michelle Craig McDonald explains how coffee became popular in early America and how the beverage became Americanized despite having to be imported. In doing so, she demonstrates how the early American economy was deeply intertwined with the rest of the Atlantic world, particularly the Caribbean and South American regions where coffee could be cultivated. McDonald’s book thus makes a valuable contribution to what is now a flourishing historiography of coffee production and consumption in the wider American world.

Dr. Brian Cowan, McGill University

Author of The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of British Coffeehouses