Costa Rica suspended payments on its London debt in 1901, at the beginning of a democratisation process and during a crisis in the world coffee market. Meanwhile, autocratic Nicaragua, also a coffee exporter, continued paying its foreign creditors. This article assesses the causes of these distinct outcomes, which are at odds with the influential hypothesis that democracy makes for better borrowers. Strongly represented in Congress, Costa Rica's coffee elite pushed for the end of a tax on coffee as the legislative became more powerful. The executive had used that revenue to service the debt, which went on default as a consequence. Politics were radically different in Nicaragua: coffee growers were weaker and President Zelaya ruled without legislative tutelage. Hence, his government could raise a similar tax to honour the sovereign debt. With a clean record, the dictator borrowed abroad to build a modern army, the backbone of his autocratic regime.

This article investigates the history of coffee culture across three continents during the Fascist ventennio (1922–45.) By using the novel framework of coffee, from the bean in the field to the machine in the caffè, it connects interwar histories that previously have been explored independently. Specifically, it examines the transnational economics of coffee bean trade routes and the colonial imagery of coffee advertising to argue that caffès emerged as key sites for promoting the Fascist imperial projects in East Africa – an architectural and artistic legacy that remains in place today. Ultimately, this trajectory broadens the way that we understand how food and farming became politicised during the Fascist period. By untangling the interwar trade of beans and bodies between Italy, Brazil, and Ethiopia, this article brings to light an untold story of caffeinated imperial aggression and resistance.

Much of the agricultural history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America has been dominated by studies of export products and economies. Yet just as important for national development were domestic markets supplied by small-scale farmers. Using Guatemala as a case study for Latin America, this article examines the challenges faced by farmers producing for local, regional and national markets. Over the course of the national period, state authorities’ sporadic concern for domestic agriculture provided indigenous small-scale farmers with opportunities to advance their agendas, which ranged from resisting forced labour to maintaining their traditional agricultural practices. By the 1930s, domestic foodstuff production had increased markedly because in the early twentieth century state authorities had joined small-scale farmers to actively promote domestic-use agriculture.

Se interrogó a 30 pacientes hospitalizados varones dependientes de alcohol sin trastorno depresivo concurrente, 13 de ellos con antecedentes familiares positivos de dependencia de alcohol en un familiar en primer grado (AFP), sobre su deseo y hábitos de consumo con respecto a cigarrillos, café y dulces mientras estaban en un tratamiento hospitalario de tres semanas después de la deshabituación de alcohol. Seis semanas después del alta del hospital, se evaluó de nuevo a los pacientes en cuanto a la recaída. Once pacientes (36,6%) habían recaído en el seguimiento. Los que recayeron eran más jóvenes que los que se abstuvieron. Los días hasta la recaída correlacionaban negativamente con la intensidad del deseo de beber alcohol, el deseo de fumar cigarrillos y con un consumo más alto de cigarrillos. Los pacientes con AFP no recaían antes pero tenían un deseo más fuerte de beber café y comer dulces y tenían un consumo más alto de café.