At the Amsterdam 
Steven Shapin
- The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffee House by Brian Cowan Buy this book
- Coffee House: A Cultural History by Markman Ellis Buy this book
I went to a coffee house this morning. I had a ‘grande’ latte. It cost me $3.20. Sometimes I carry the coffee with me to work in a cardboard cup; this time I sat in the coffee house and drank it while reading the newspaper. I went by myself and did not have a conversation with any of the other customers – several of whom I vaguely recognised but most of whom were strangers. Almost all of them were talking to someone they had come with, reading their own papers, or doing something on the internet, as this coffee house is a wireless hot spot.
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Steven Shapin is the Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science at Harvard. The Life of Science: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation will appear in the autumn.
Other articles by this contributor:
Hedonistic Fruit Bombs · How good is Château Pavie?
Megaton Man · The Original Dr Strangelove
I’m a Surfer · What’s the Genome Worth?
Don’t let that crybaby in here again · The Manhattan Project
When Men Started Doing It · At the Grill Station
The Great Neurotic Art · Steven Shapin tucks into Atkins
Dear Prudence · Stephen Toulmin
Nobel Savage · Kary Mullis
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