SUMMARY
This article presents a history of coffee in the modern world-economy, w;ing an analyticalframework synthesized from Arrighi's concept of systemic cycles of accumulation and Braudel'snotion of three levels of economic analysis: material life, the market economy, and capitalism. Ittakes the commodity chain as the unit of analysis, and argues that this choice helps to illuminatethe caw;al connections between Braudel 's three layers. The method of incorporated comparisonis w;ed to compare restructurings of the coffee commodity chain with the restructurings of thelarger world-economy during each of Arrighi 's systemic cycles.