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Tom Standage

Tom Standage Quotes

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Famous Tom Standage Quotes

“This original version of Coca-Cola contained a small amount of coca extract and therefore a trace of cocaine. (It was eliminated early in the twentieth century, though other extracts derived from coca leaves remain part of the drink to this day.) Its creation was not the accidental concoction of an amateur experimenting in his garden, but the deliberate and painstaking culmination of months of work by an experienced maker of quack remedies.”

MedicineCocaineCoca ColaQuack Remedies
Book:A History of the World in 6 Glasses
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“March 1774 by declaring the port of Boston closed until the East India Company had been compensated for its losses. This was the first of the so-called Coercive Acts—a series of laws passed in 1774 in which the British attempted to assert their authority over the colonies but instead succeeded only in enraging the colonists further and ultimately prompted the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775. It is tempting to wonder whether a government less influenced by the interests of the company might have simply shrugged off the tea parties or come to some compromise with the colonists.”

Revolutionary WarEast India CompanyCorporate InfluenceBoston Tea PartyCoercive Acts
Author:Tom Standage
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“Coffeehouses were centers of self-education, literary and philosophical speculation, commercial innovation, and, in some cases, political fermentation. But above all they were clearinghouses for news and gossip, linked by the circulation of customers, publications, and information from one establishment to the next. Collectively, Europe's coffeehouses functioned as the Internet of the Age of Reason.”

CoffeeAge Of ReasonCoffee House
Book:A History of the World in 6 Glasses
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“Greek customs such as wine drinking were regarded as worthy of imitation by other cultures. So the ships that carried Greek wine were carrying Greek civilization, distributing it around the Mediterranean and beyond, one amphora at a time. Wine displaced beer to become the most civilized and sophisticated of drinks—a status it has maintained ever since, thanks to its association with the intellectual achievements of Ancient Greece.”

CultureDrinkCivilizationAchievementIntellectualWineDrinkingAncientWorthyShipsThanksBeerGreekCivilizedCustomsAssociationSophisticatedImitationGreeceOther CulturesDrinking WineAncient GreeceGreek Civilization
Author:Tom Standage
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“The Arabs understandably did everything they could to protect their monopoly. Coffee beans were treated before being shipped to ensure they were sterile and could not be used to seed new coffee plants; foreigners were excluded from coffee-producing areas. First to break the Arab monopoly were the Dutch, who displaced the Portuguese as the dominant European nation in the East Indies during the seventeenth century, gaining control of the spice trade in the process and briefly becoming the world's leading commercial power.”

WorldFirstsUsedNationsProcessBreakCenturyBecomingProtectAreasTradePlantSeedsEastCoffeeTreatedDominantMonopolyForeignersSpicesBeansDutchExcludedPortuguese
Author:Tom Standage
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