MixedThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)Penelope J. Corfield can write with confidence and authority about the whole sweep of the period because she has already contributed greatly to our knowledge of developments that shaped the age, including the rise of the professions, urbanization and democracy. She gives the period a dynastic label, but is well aware that other tags could be applied to it ... The book registers the coexistence of opposing forces and of radical and conservative reactions, but there is a seesaw quality to an approach with so many contradictions and qualifications. Corfield’s even-handed approach, however, is part of a larger political and perhaps even moral attempt to bring past and present together.
Augustine Sedgewick
PositiveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)\"... impressive ... People and food as much as coffee itself are the focus of Sedgewick’s concern and the nexus of some of the most surprising connections in Coffeeland ... Together, these intellectual forays constitute a powerful indictment of labour relations in El Salvador and capitalism in general ... Although Sedgewick presents ample contextual material and employs novelistic techniques, Hill is a shadowy figure. He is rarely quoted, though numerous articles, speeches and letters are cited. Hill’s son Jaime Snr comes briefly but vividly alive as we see him in 1932, on the eve of a popular uprising ... Sedgewick does not present Coffeeland as the rags to riches story of a boy from the Manchester slums. This is a cautionary tale.
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