Rating: 
Summary: Well worth the effort!!
Review: Dominic Streatfield presents us with a beautifully crafted and written piece of work. Even though this book contains nearly 500 pages, I suspect it could have numbered far more. Nevertheless, I appreciated his chronological presentation of the role *coca* played in pre-Columbian South America up to the contemporary use and abuse of *cocaine* by Americans and Brits alike (the author is in fact British!). And even though this book is non-fiction, the author's injection of his personality and experiences while researching the book were refreshing and comical. In short, a great read that can provide hours of conversation fodder!
Rating:
Summary: This book is funny, intelligent, and incredibly interesting
Review: I began reading this book by reading sections my friend suggested to read and immediately fell in love with it. Seeing that this book was easy to pick up and start reading from the middle, I was worried it would read like a history book, written chapter by chapter. However, going back and having read the entire book, this book flows well and is difficult to put down. It talks about everything from the Coca leaf use among the native South Americans in the 1500s, to their exploitation, to Coca's spread to the Western world as an anaesthesic medicine, and finally becoming the drug Cocaine and spreading from there to the vast world of the past few decades full of ridiculously wealthy drug traffickers. I have recommended this book to all my friends and I do the same for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Addictive Infotainment
Review: I keep trying, but I just can't put this book down! Seriously, this is fascinating stuff. If this were a novel (and it could, in a very postmodern sense, be read as such), cocaine would be the best character ever written.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, exciting, interesting read
Review: I picked this book up randomly at Heathrow Airport. I've been wanting to read that history of salt book and figured that this would be an okay second choice.I was wrong - it was an AMAZING choice. I could not put this book down. Fun facts, hilarious commentary, outstanding research, and true journalistic investigation. I hope that this book catches on... I've already promised my copy to 10 people. Are you the type of person who likes to learn new things and share them with others? Get this book. Do you like to read alternative accounts of history? Get this book. Do you like informative writing with a humorous bent? Get this book. I hope to read more by this author in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Exhaustive yet not exhausting
Review: If you ever wanted to know an extraordinary amount of detail about cocaine and then some, this is the book for you. Written by a documentary filmmaker, Streatfield's enormously thorough tome not only takes you across various geographies, but also through time. Starting with the Incan and Aztec uses of the coca leaf, Streatfield takes us on an incredible journey of a substance that leads us through to the Latin American domination of production while highlighting the U.S. consumerism of the product. The amount of detail in this book is staggering as Streatfield has spent a lot of time researching materials as well as tracking down individuals around the globe. Statistics are liberally used to drive home his points. For example, in the 1980's the Miami Federal Reserve Bank had an unexpected surplus of US $5.5 Billion. This was more than all of the other 11 Federal Reserve Banks combined. The book is full of statistics like this that demonstrate the scale of impact of cocaine. In addition to the facts and figures, we are introduced to some fascinating characters on this journey. We learn of Sigmund Freud's addiction to cocaine (there are some who believe that his great work would have not been possible without cocaine), the American distributor George Jung (popularized in the movie Blow), super narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar and his ilk and many others. Some characters are superfluous (i.e. Freud) but others are more central to machinations of the cocaine industry and their impact is thoroughly explored (i.e. George Jung, Carlos Ledher). If there is a con in the book, it is that some chapters are not labeled as properly as they could be. For example, the chapter where we are introduced to George Jung and his Colombian buddy ends with an extensive discussion about Colombia and Pablo Escobar. The chapter title leads us to believe none of that and probably could have been titled "George leads to Colombian dominance" or something like that. This would give the reader a better idea of what to expect in each chapter. If you are even the least bit curious about Cocaine, then this book is a must for you. Streatfield's writing style can be a bit whimsical at times but it provides just the right note of humor in a tome of documentary proportions and scope.
Rating:
Summary: Exhaustive yet not exhausting
Review: If you ever wanted to know an extraordinary amount of detail about cocaine and then some, this is the book for you. Written by a documentary filmmaker, Streatfield's enormously thorough tome not only takes you across various geographies, but also through time. Starting with the Incan and Aztec uses of the coca leaf, Streatfield takes us on an incredible journey of a substance that leads us through to the Latin American domination of production while highlighting the U.S. consumerism of the product. The amount of detail in this book is staggering as Streatfield has spent a lot of time researching materials as well as tracking down individuals around the globe. Statistics are liberally used to drive home his points. For example, in the 1980's the Miami Federal Reserve Bank had an unexpected surplus of US $5.5 Billion. This was more than all of the other 11 Federal Reserve Banks combined. The book is full of statistics like this that demonstrate the scale of impact of cocaine. In addition to the facts and figures, we are introduced to some fascinating characters on this journey. We learn of Sigmund Freud's addiction to cocaine (there are some who believe that his great work would have not been possible without cocaine), the American distributor George Jung (popularized in the movie Blow), super narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar and his ilk and many others. Some characters are superfluous (i.e. Freud) but others are more central to machinations of the cocaine industry and their impact is thoroughly explored (i.e. George Jung, Carlos Ledher). If there is a con in the book, it is that some chapters are not labeled as properly as they could be. For example, the chapter where we are introduced to George Jung and his Colombian buddy ends with an extensive discussion about Colombia and Pablo Escobar. The chapter title leads us to believe none of that and probably could have been titled "George leads to Colombian dominance" or something like that. This would give the reader a better idea of what to expect in each chapter. If you are even the least bit curious about Cocaine, then this book is a must for you. Streatfield's writing style can be a bit whimsical at times but it provides just the right note of humor in a tome of documentary proportions and scope.
Rating: 
Summary: If you like Cocaine, you'll love *Cocaine*
Review: Ok, so, basically, there's this really cool leaf in South America that natives have been chewing for medicinal and epicurean purposes since before the reign of the Incas. This leaf, if you believe Streatfeild, was largely responsible for maintaining a labor force to strip South America of its silver - miners would work days without hardly taking a break as long as they had their precious coca. Apparently, this leaf is relatively harmless in its natural form. When you chew it, you will get very small doses of several drugs, one of which provides the name for this book. Fast forward to present day. The natives are still chewing coca, but instead of mining silver, their harvesting their favorite leaf, converting it to a crude paste, and selling it to narco-traffickers who then make it into pure or almost pure cocaine. Of course, this is illegal, and the United States in particular has a bone to pick about the leaf (unless it's being used for one of its few legitimate purposes - such as flavoring coca-cola, which it is STILL used for, despite popular belief). But people want their cocaine. That's why we've got the drug war. Yes, the drug war is very very stupid. And Streatfield never misses an opportunity to drive this point home. Hard.
I like this book. It has a plethora of trivia that's actually worth knowing, and it provides a new context to several historical events. But I don't really like Dominic Streatfeild. I get the feeling that if I met him I'd have to constantly force myself to smile. Awkward. He's like a nerdy Sherlock Holmes. His plot development techniques get a bit formulaic. I got very tired of paragraphs beginning with questions such as "And then what happened?" followed by him answering his own question. It's a rather tedious method of moving the story along. But I do admire the courage he had to have had to go where he had to go - deep into the nexus of the cocaine industry. He even interviewed two of the most infamous narco-traffickers, the Ochoa Brothers. But once he got in those situations, he didn't really get to the big questions. I don't blame him, of course. I wouldn't feel comfortable accusing one of the world's most powerful criminals of murder or torture either. But it was a bit anti-climatic.
Worth reading.. The chapter on crack is particularly interesting.
Rating:
Summary: If you like Cocaine, you'll love *Cocaine*
Review: Ok, so, basically, there's this really cool leaf in South America that natives have been chewing for medicinal and epicurean purposes since before the reign of the Incas. This leaf, if you believe Streatfeild, was largely responsible for maintaining a labor force to strip South America of its silver - miners would work days without hardly taking a break as long as they had their precious coca. Apparently, this leaf is relatively harmless in its natural form. When you chew it, you will get very small doses of several drugs, one of which provides the name for this book. Fast forward to present day. The natives are still chewing coca, but instead of mining silver, their harvesting their favorite leaf, converting it to a crude paste, and selling it to narco-traffickers who then make it into pure or almost pure cocaine. Of course, this is illegal, and the United States in particular has a bone to pick about the leaf (unless it's being used for one of its few legitimate purposes - such as flavoring coca-cola, which it is STILL used for, despite popular belief). But people want their cocaine. That's why we've got the drug war. Yes, the drug war is very very stupid. And Streatfield never misses an opportunity to drive this point home. Hard.
I like this book. It has a plethora of trivia that's actually worth knowing, and it provides a new context to several historical events. But I don't really like Dominic Streatfeild. I get the feeling that if I met him I'd have to constantly force myself to smile. Awkward. He's like a nerdy Sherlock Holmes. His plot development techniques get a bit formulaic. I got very tired of paragraphs beginning with questions such as "And then what happened?" followed by him answering his own question. It's a rather tedious method of moving the story along. But I do admire the courage he had to have had to go where he had to go - deep into the nexus of the cocaine industry. He even interviewed two of the most infamous narco-traffickers, the Ochoa Brothers. But once he got in those situations, he didn't really get to the big questions. I don't blame him, of course. I wouldn't feel comfortable accusing one of the world's most powerful criminals of murder or torture either. But it was a bit anti-climatic.
Worth reading.. The chapter on crack is particularly interesting.
Rating:
Summary: From coca leaves to cocaine powder to freebase
Review: Streatfield treats us to a well-researched saga of a nondescript plant turned worldwide scourge. The harmless looking coca plant was a staple of native South American societies for millennia. The continent's natives chewed a compound based on coca leaves to increase their endurance during long, trans-mountain treks; the chewing of which also reduced the food they would need on these grueling voyages. Coca, when taken in this manner, would provide a prolonged, but mild effect, in comparison with the 'high' that comes from the more pure forms of the substance that have been produced by modern science, medicine, and 'criminal enteprise'. Streatfield explores the newfound interest in the plant occasioned by medical research in the late 19th century, when many doctors and scientists, during the course of studying this remarkable drug, almost invariably found themselves 'addicted' to it. (Whether cocaine can truly be called 'addictive' is still a subject of debate and controversy. Opponents of the appellation 'addictive' emphasizing that cocaine, unlike drugs such as heroine and alcohol, does not produce withdrawal symptoms in the user who ceases its intake. This is anoverblown debate, unfortunately, as, like many high-profile debates in society, the point of contention is not substantive but semantic.) Streatfield documents the decline of cocaine use in the early to mid 20th century, and tracks its subsequent rise on the heels of the blossoming drug culture of the 1960's. One interesting point involves the attempted duplication, by an American distributor, of the smoked variety he sampled in a South American labaratory. Unawarre of the crude nature of the mixture, he set a scientist upon the task; and the result was not the comparably weak cocaine smoked in the remote laboratories, but the first ever purification of cocaine into freebase. This massively more potent form, together with the relatively short nature of the high, were to revolutionize the drug culture in America, especially in the inner cities. Most impressive about Streatfield's work, however, are the steps he takes to get firsthand knowledge, not only of the drug, but of the persons involved in the violent trafficking thereof. He visits and interviews many persons- law enforcement agents, imprisoned dealers, and even the armed compounds of wanted Colombian kingpins- putting himself in predicaments that have been the death of many before him. This book provides a wonderful history of the plant itself, and a tremendous survey of the politics, crime, and fortunes that have arisen alongside it in the last 40 years. Fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable!
Review: This is truly one of the finest books I have read in a long time. Streatfeild starts with the background of Cocaine, how it came in to existence in the western world, what it is, etc. For this he went to libraries and read books that haven't been read in decades about Cocaine. This part can be a little laborious, but very useful and helps you appreciate what cocaine is all about and how it is more complicated than a drug that is just evil. You use the background he gives when you get to the rest of the book where he goes in to how cocaine has basically shaped the entire political and economic part of Latin America. His stories about the smugglers kept me up all night, they were so interesting, informative and lively, even more so as they are true and really matter to millions of people. He actually talks to maney smugglers in America, Columbia, Bolivia and elsewhere. His research throughout is superb. He went to any length to get the real story. Great Job!
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