After it emerged as a market commodity in the 18th century, coffee was easily adapted to cultivation in the highlands of Central America. Guatemala in particular has relied on coffee cultivation as a part of its economic identity: it has been a premier export crop for over 300 years. The importance of coffee to the country lies in the large labour investment in each stage of production. The book covers agricultural, social, and cultural aspects of coffee culture in Guatemala in old photographs, charts, tables and maps. Wagner's work shows how Guatemala has met the economic complexity to which this product is subject, and why coffee remains the solid foundation crop of the country today.

The global coffee trade is a collision between the rich world and the poor world. A group of graduate students is about to experience that collision head-on. Angela, Alex, Rich, and Sofi a bring to their summer research project in Guatemala more than their share of grad-school baggage—along with clashing ideas about poverty and globalization. But as they follow the trail of coffee beans from the Guatemalan peasant grower to the American coffee drinker, what unfolds is not only a stunning research discovery, but an unforgettable journey of personal challenge and growth. Based on an actual research project on fair trade coffee funded by USAID, The Taste of Many Mountains is a brilliantly-staged novel about the global economy in which University of San Francisco economist Bruce Wydick examines the realities of the coffee trade from the perspective of young researchers struggling to understand the chasm between the world’s rich and poor. “Wydick’s first novel is brewed perfectly—full of rich body with double-shots of insight.” —Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado, President and CEO of Compassion International "This wonderfully enlightening book describes the Mayan culture in Guatemala and some of the sufferings these people have survived." —CBA Retailers + Resources Includes Reading Group Guide

Written by a young human rights worker, "Silence on the Mountain" is a virtuoso work of reporting and a masterfully plotted narrative tracing the history of Guatemala's 36-year internal war, a conflict that claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people.

This comprehensive study of rural development in Guatemala first examines the nature of rural society in the late colonial period and early decades of independence, and then details the massive and enduring changes caused by the spread of large-scale coffee production after the mid-nineteenth century. In the process, it also contributes to a number of important debates in Latin American studies and the theoretical literature of development: the structure of land tenure, the effects of the shift to export agriculure, the exploitation of indigenous populations, the forms of peasant resistance, and the role of state institutions in the politics of development. The book is in two parts. Part I describes rural life and economy in Guatemala through the cochineal boom of the 1850's. Part II shows how coffee dramatically changed the economy of Guatemala.