Counter-Cola - by Amanda Ciafone (Paperback)

About the Book

"Counter-Cola charts the history of the Coca-Cola Company's globalization and the contests over the corporation in the 20th and 21st centuries. It tells the story of how, over the last 130 years, Coca-Cola has tried to make itself not only physically but also culturally a central part of global daily life. Realizing that success was not just fizzy water, the corporation knew that cultural impact, intellectual property, commodification of knowledge, and financialization were all key to power over their growing and outsourced production. In this they not only reflected, but drove, the way corporations--especially American corporations--grew and changed globally over a century. Through this story of Coca-Cola, Ciafone is able to tell us about all the key economic transformations of the 20th century--from the liberal developmentalism of empire, to national developmentalism of decolonization, to today's neoliberalism. This is the story of modern global capitalism"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Counter-Cola charts the history of one of the world's most influential and widely known corporations, The Coca-Cola Company. Over the past 130 years, the corporation has sought to make its products, brands, and business central to daily life in over 200 countries. Amanda Ciafone uses this example of global capitalism to reveal the pursuit of corporate power within the key economic transformations--liberal, developmentalist, neoliberal--of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Coca-Cola's success has not gone uncontested. People throughout the world have redeployed the corporation, its commodities, and brand images to challenge the injustices of daily life under capitalism. As Ciafone shows, assertions of national economic interests, critiques of cultural homogenization, fights for workers' rights, movements for environmental justice, and debates over public health have obliged the corporation to justify itself in terms of the common good, demonstrating capitalism's imperative to either assimilate critiques or reveal its limits.

From the Back Cover

"Perhaps more than any other corporation on earth, the Coca-Cola Company has associated the concept of the 'good life' with the interests of American capitalism. Buy a coke, be part of the dream. In this timely book, Amanda Ciafone shows how, by constantly shifting its all-important image to fit the times, the company--like capitalism--thrives as it floats above both critics and mistakes."--Maude Barlow, author of Blue Future: Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever

"Counter-Cola tells the story of how a junk diet became a staple across the world and how movements have grown to stop its water theft and the hijack of our food and health policies. Having worked with Mylamma and the community in Plachimada that shut Coke down, I know coca colonisation can be resisted."--Vandana Shiva, author of Who Really Feeds the World? The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology

"By exploring how Coca-Cola shaped global capitalism, and how global capitalism in turn created the world's most famous corporation, Ciafone's dazzling account alters our understanding of the modern world, corporate power, and political struggle. Counter-Cola is an extraordinarily important book for understanding not only how capitalism and one of its most visible expressions have colonized the planet but how people throughout the world have pushed back against the company's imperial designs. Ciafone delivers a highly readable and compelling guide for anyone interested in understanding and transforming the world in which we live."-- Steve Striffler, author of Solidarity: Latin America and the US Left in the Era of Human Rights

"Grappling with one of the most iconic global corporations, this book provides a rich and eminently readable account of the interplay between corporate power and resistance. Through impeccable archival and ethnographic research, it untangles the many intricate connections between this giant corporation and social movements in the making of global capitalism."--Zaheer Baber, author of Secularism, Communalism, and the Intellectuals

"Long before Nike, McDonald's, Apple, Walmart, and Amazon all redefined corporate salesmanship on their own terms, the Coca-Cola Company hatched a global market model through its franchise system, doctrine of rights management, and branding feats. In this compelling contribution to the new history of capitalism, Ciafone does a brilliant job of narrating the social and cultural consequences of these early moves."--Andrew Ross, author of Creditocracy and the Case for Debt Refusal

Review Quotes

"Drawing on company records, archival materials, and various publications, Ciafone investigates corporate endeavors with an anthropologically influenced understanding of people and practices who resisted Coca-Cola. . . . Highly recommended."-- "CHOICE"

"Highly recommended."-- "CHOICE"

About the Author

Amanda Ciafone is Assistant Professor of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.