high hopes crash

High hopes crash


The evolution of the cocaine industry in Peru from a legal global trade to a complex web that includes Coca-Cola and political upshots is a different history than those previously read, except for Mintz.   Other works by Gootenberg explore more political dimensions in the history of Peru, therefore, allowing the commodity story to become a valuable presentation of a complex global, local and legal, illegal merge.
I do not think that Gootenberg is comfortable with defining agency in the illegal trade. As he states, "It may seem strange to claim agency in a drug-gone-bad story." (318)
Joseph's comment about government intervention rings very true in the drug world connections with the United States. The counterfactual question is: if the United States had not made the drug illegal, would the 'peasant' farmers be agents? Substitution crop efforts have pretty much failed on multiple levels. Gottenberg eludes to this, perhaps the one weak place in his work.
"Andean Cocaine" is an incredible study. The notes from the primary source materials. It is a study more of a political economy - back to Adam Smith days of "Wealth of Nations. As James points out, the legal commodity default at a time when laissez-faire ended, and the United States began to develop as the super power, Peru's cocaine industry became more of an illegal jungle industry. Poignantly, the author delegates this as, "the blowback effects overwhelm any rational considered goal." (p. 323)
Rather than a gangster monolith riddled with a myriad of complicit actors and players, Gootenberg has written a historical work with an explanation of three historical trajectories of the  Andean coca to cocaine commodity: the creation, the chemistry and the international, illicit drug culture. Commodity chains are woven with policy and incredible archival research to expose historical truths apropos to the paradox of Peru's role in present day global economies.