For God, country and Coca-Cola

by Mark Pendergrast

How did an innocuous soft drink, more than 99% sweetened water, come to be regarded as "the sublimated essence of all that America stands for"? For God, Country and Coca-Cola is a cultural, social, and economic history of America as seen through the green glass of a Coke bottle. And what a quintessentially American tale it is. Coca-Cola began humbly as a patent medicine amid the fervor and chaos of Reconstruction Atlanta. A shrewd marketeer saw its value as a beverage, and it rapidly grew through the Gilded Age to become the dominant consumer product of the American Century. The key to Coca-Cola's success was ubiquitous advertising, as the Company's master myth-makers first created and then quenched the thirst of a nation. And when World War II carried American troops overseas, the soft drink went as well, laying the foundation for an enduring and lucrative presence. Drawing on previously untapped archival sources, For God, Country and Coca-Cola paints vivid portraits of the entreprene