"Say "cocaine history" and most people think of Pablo Escobar or disco or perhaps the original Coca-Cola. Steven Karch takes us back to the drug's critical early years, when the the coca plant was the object of intense curiosity and excitement among botanists and medical researchers. Full of outsized personalities and surprising details, A Brief History of Cocaine is a lively and readable introduction to the discovery, popularization, and globalization of cocaine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."--David Courtwright, author of Dark Paradise and Forces of Habit.A Brief History of Cocaine is definitely an engaging read. Karch's second edition has been updated to include the most recent information on trafficking, consumption, cost, and trends …. For a relatively short book (188 pages) the author covers a wide variety of topics ranging from its trade as a commodity, the effects of cocaine abuse on society and even celebrity deaths. The common thread in this book is the comparison of old and new. This makes for a refreshing read, and one that is extremely relevant read for practitioners from a wide variety of disciplines.- Sarah Kerrigan writing in the Journal of Forensic Science,Vol. 52, No.3 May 2007"The timing is perfect for a book reminding us of the long history of cocaine and the periodic denial of past and present and realities that accompanies each new cocaine epidemic."- Journal of the American Medical Association, June 14 2006"…painstakingly researched…both fascinating and enlightening…a detailed analysis of drug policy through centuries."-New England Journal of Medicine 9/06"Bursting at the bindings with fascinating facts, Steven Karch's A Brief History of Cocaine is just that: the exploitation of the coca leaf and cocaine. We learn a lot."- Adrian Branett, in New Scientist Magazine, April 1998"…Steven Karch does not claim that his book is the definitive history of cocaine, but it is the best volume on the topic…a convenient, scholarly, and well-written outline of cocaine's history."- David F. Musto, Psychiatry, Yale University, in American Scientist, Volume 86