My work

In his new book, Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism, historian Bart Elmore complicates the narrative that Coca-Cola’s rise to global empire is one of inimitable marketing alone. His research shows how the company’s success has depended on the ever-expanding exploitation of natural resources and taking advantage of public works and government interventions. He recently spoke with producer Miranda Bennett about how the environmental costs shed by Coke have fallen on the public at large.

In the 1960s, Coca-Cola had a cocaine problem. This might seem odd, since the company removed cocaine from its formula around 1903, bowing to Jim Crow fears that the drug was contributing to black crime in the South. But even though Coke went cocaine-free in the Progressive Era, it continued to purchase coca leaves from Peru, removing the cocaine from the leaves but keeping what was left over as a flavoring extract. By the end of the twentieth century it was the single largest purchaser of legally imported coca leaves in the United States.