From Silver to Cocaine

From Silver to Cocaine

This book was a fresh of breath air after last week’s reading.  From Silver to Cocaine is an excellent book about commodity, the style and the language used is simple to make the reader grasp the main arguments of the writer. Similarly to last week, the raw materials are from the Americas and European markets are in demand for it.  The book discussed the commodity product and its unique importance.  Then moved to production and distribution in reference to supply and demand. Some chapter were well written than others for example the banana chapter, I liked the change in the production and consumption over time.  I founded very interesting how the book connected the WWI and WWII to the supply and demand chain.  From the cultural aspect it was fascinating to see how banana changed from product that was exclusively served in high-end hotels to becoming available almost on everyone’s breakfast table as a nutritional must.  All that happened without the banana loosing its qualities.  In the past books as soon the product becomes available to everyone it lost its power but that was not what happened to the banana.   In addition it was interesting to see through advertisement and making the fruit relevant by adding cereal to increase demand.

            This book is in for me as far as the final project, it even gave me some idea in how to approach it.   Overall the book is excellent, even though I found some confusion in the color chapters.