From its invention as a cocaine-laced patent medicine in the Gilded Age to its globe-drenching ubiquity as the definitive symbol of consumer capitalism in the twenty-first century, Coca-Cola's dramatic history unfolds as the ultimate business saga. In this revised edition of For God, Country and Coca-Cola, Mark Pendergrast looks at America's cultural, social, and economic history through the bottom of a green glass Coke bottle and tells the captivating story of the world's most recognizable consumer product. The tale begins with John Pemberton, a morphine-addicted Atlanta pharmacist who invented Coca-Cola as a hangover cure and treatment for "neurasthenia" in 1886, and ends with a company unchallenged in its global dominance, its role strengthened by a successful turnaround after years of mismanagement. In between, a colorful cast of fathers and sons, hustlers and bankers, accountants and would-be movie moguls steered Coca-Cola to its present position, through ups (the introduction of Diet Coke) and downs (the introduction of New Coke). The revised edition covers the many challenges the company has faced in the 21st century, including everything from questions over soda's role in the obesity crisis to accusations that the company had union employees murdered in South America. Pendergrast also explores how America's love of the soda has also evolved into a kind of consumer religion, as evidenced by the Holy of Holies-like "Vault" at the World of Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta, where for a $16 ticket tourists can have their photo taken in front of the safe that holds the sacred and mysterious original formula for Coke. And of course, the book still contains that original formula, now with an additional version from the notes of Frank M. Robinson, the man who named and first marketed Coca-Cola.

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