During the past decade, interest in chocolate and its history has increased significantly. Following on this trend, a vast number of books dealing with chocolate have appeared in different publishing venues, both academic and nonacademic. Similarly, some instructors have included units that study the commodity or, in some rare instances, have devoted a whole course to study cacao and chocolate. In the author's course, throughout the semester, students examine specific historical developments such as its Mesoamerican origins, colonial production and consumption, technological innovations, globalization of cacao production, and the modern chocolate industry, just to name a few. However, rather than studying cacao and chocolate in a vacuum, the author uses them as windows to understand larger historical processes such as ancient Mesoamerican civilizations, the Columbian exchange, the Trans-Atlantic system, the Industrial Revolution, European imperialism, and the expansion of global capitalism.