The space of the coffee shop is suffused with social meaning. It has been a site for collaboration, discussion, community building, and leisure. A researcher at the University of Chicago takes us through the intellectual history of the coffee shop in Baghdad, and allows us to appreciate the rich history of coffee across geographical borders and expanses of time.

Written by Pelle Valentin Olsen, a PhD student at the University of Chicago that spends most of his time procrastinating in one of Chicago's many coffee shops and Read by Luke Adams, content director of Standart.

Recorded at The Bear & The Bean in Oxford, United Kingdom.