About this episode

Bartow Elmore discusses the history of Coca-Cola and its impact on corporate practices and environmental issues.

Coca-Cola is one of the most well-known products on planet earth, but did you ever wonder how a brown fizzy drink fueled the rise of a corporate juggernaut? The answer, says Ohio State historian Bartow Elmore, has everything to do with its business structure. In this episode, Bart offers his take on how Coke went from Atlanta soda parlors in the late 19 th century to markets across the globe in less than a century, all along reaping tremendous benefits from public infrastructure while passing the bulk of its environmental costs on to others. Bart also talks about the difficulties of doing research on powerful corporations, why he thinks we should care about environmental history, and the meaning of what he calls "Coca-Cola Capitalism." Dr. Bartow Elmore is Professor of History at The Ohio State University and author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism (W.W. Norton, 2015) . You can find out more about his work, including his book on the history of Monsanto at his website, BartElmore.com . This episode was originally aired as episode 140 on August 26, 2019. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

People in this episode

Guest: Bartow Elmore

Topics covered

• Coca-Cola history
• corporate structure
• environmental history
• business practices
• Bartow Elmore

Keywords

• Coca-Cola
• Bartow Elmore
• corporate history
• environmental costs
• Coca-Cola Capitalism
• business structure
• soda parlors

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Coca-Cola, The Ohio State University

Books & works: Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism

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