Sugar: The World Corrupted: From Slavery to Obesity

by James Walvin

Overview

How did sugar grow from prize to pariah? Acclaimed historian James Walvin looks at the history of our collective sweet tooth, beginning with the sugar grown by enslaved people who had been uprooted and shipped vast distances to undertake the grueling labor on plantations. The combination of sugar and slavery would transform the tastes of the Western world. Prior to 1600, sugar was a costly luxury, the domain of the rich. But with the rise of the sugar colonies in the New World over the following century, sugar became cheap, ubiquitous, and an everyday necessity. Less than fifty years ago, few people suggested that sugar posed a global health problem. And yet today, sugar is regularly denounced as a dangerous addiction, on a par with tobacco. Masterfully insightful and probing, James Walvin reveals the relationship between society and sweetness over the past two centuries— and how it explains our conflicted relationship with sugar today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681777207
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	04/03/2018
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

James Walvin is the author of several books on slavery and modern social history. including Crossings and A Jamaican Plantation. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2008 he was awarded an OBE for services to scholarship. He lives in England.

Editorial Reviews

Sugar, [Walvin] shows, is a blood-soaked product that has brought havoc to millions and environmental devastation to large parts of the planet, premature death to the poorest populations in many parts of the world and huge health costs for societies from the United States to India. After reading this book the mere mention of sugar should make you think of slavery and cavities, imperialism and obesity—and remind you to check the label on the products you consume…Sugar is an entertaining, informative and utterly depressing global history of an important commodity…What Walvin adds to [sugar studies] is accessible prose and a more expansive view that focuses on the contemporary moment and, especially, the public health implications of a world addicted to sugar.

The New York Times Book Review - Sven Beckert

01/15/2018
British social historian Walvin (Crossings) charts the evolution of sugar from prized global commodity to the culprit behind the modern obesity epidemic, showing how a foodstuff once so ubiquitous that it was deemed “the general solace of all classes” came to wreak environmental and social havoc. Sugar’s inexorable rise began in the plantations of the 16th-century Caribbean, where the cheap labor of African slaves made it available in large quantities for the first time. The substance was soon all the rage in Europe, where both elites and ordinary citizens succumbed to its pleasures as well as to the previously unknown phenomenon of tooth decay—a symbol, for Walvin, of the ecological damage, moral degeneration, and public-health disaster sugar would cause in the centuries to come. Walvin’s tone is brisk and informative, particularly in chapters on the gradual intertwining of sugar and sociability through such institutions as cafés and factory “tea breaks.” But the book’s final section on sugar and obesity feels unconnected to its historical argument, and many themes here have been explored in greater depth elsewhere. Descriptions of sugar sculptures and breakfast customs only take Walvin so far: the rise of sugar was so relentless and unstoppable that the book feels devoid of sustained conflict or complexity. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"A roller-coaster ride through 500 years of history. Sugar is an entertaining, informative and utterly depressing global history of an important commodity. By alerting readers to the ways that modernity’s very origins are entangled with a seemingly benign and delicious substance, Sugarraises fundamental questions about our world."

New York Times Book Review

"Shocking and revelatory. No other product has so changed the world, and no other book reveals the scale of its impact."

David Olusoga

"There’s something crazy about the modern relationship with sugar. We demonize it, and yet we can’t seem to stop gorging on it. Few plants can have caused more human misery than sugar cane, first through slavery and now through obesity, tooth decay and Type 2 diabetes. Yet when we see something sugary—a ball of cotton candy, some salted-caramel ice cream, a chocolate fudge cake—most of us still react only with joy, as if greeting a dear old friend. Despite everything we now know about the harm caused by sugar—and other modern sweeteners, such as high-fructose corn syrup—it never stops being sweet. A brilliant and thought-provoking history of sugar and its ironies. Mr. Walvin writes with fresh and righteous shock."

Bee Wilson

"This thoroughly researched exploration of a cherished commodity begins with sugar’s roots in the Middle East and chronicles its dissemination via trade and colonialism. Walvin’s expertise shines in his handling of the sugar economy."

Booklist

This thoroughly researched exploration of a cherished commodity begins with sugar’s roots in the Middle East and chronicles its dissemination via trade and colonialism. Walvin’s expertise shines in his handling of the sugar economy.

Booklist