What Starbucks Says About Us

Starbucks rose like a meteor after it went public in 1992. Nearly 44 million people go to a Starbucks somewhere in the world each week. Until recently, eight new stores were being built each day. Today there are more than 16,000 outlets in malls, airports, small town USA- there's even a Starbucks clone in Beijing’s Forbidden City.

Depending on who you ask, Starbucks has the best coffee, drives out mom and pop cafes, is expensive or ubiquitous. Bryant Simon is more interested in what the explosion, and now, deflation, of Starbucks says about identity, consumption and community at this moment in history. He spent five years visiting Starbucks around the globe, often spending 12-15 hours a week observing the stores. What he found was not the exchange of ideas and conversations of the traditional coffeehouse. Instead, he saw individuals holed up in comfy chair bunkers reinforced by wi-fi and headphones and a company trading on our broken civic life. Bryant Simon is professor of history and director of American Studies at Temple University. He’s author of Everything But the Coffee: Learning About America From Starbucks. And he joins us with more.

Associated Press: What's true cost of a Starbucks latte, author asks

Telegraph UK: Starbucks kills communities, academic claims

(Photo courtesy rudolf_schuba via Flickr/Creative Commons)