Big Sugar: Seasons in the Canefields of Florida [Hardcover]

Alec Wilkinson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1942, the U.S. Sugar Corporation was indicted for enslaving the black American cane-cutters working in their Florida plantations. Here research by New Yorker writer Wilkinson ( Moonshine ), conducted despite company obstructionism and cutters' fear of talking, reveals that the growers, protected by the sugar lobby, sugar import quotas and government foreign workers' programs, still treat 10,000 West Indian, mainly Jamaican, cutters like slaves. The author graphically describes cane growing, burning and harvesting, which he declares to be the most dangerous work in the U.S., and forcefully portrays the cutters' seven-day weeks of filthy and exhausting labor, ill-paid on a piece-rate basis (with no-interest, forced savings deductions). Equally miserable is the existence for most in dirty, crowded camp barracks, with little recreation provided and only shoddy goods available to buy. So far, Wilkinson notes, Cesar Chavez's attempts to unionize the workers have been defeated. First serial to the New Yorker.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Wilkinson's earlier books, Midnights ( LJ 7/82), a memoir about local police on Cape Cod, and Moonshine ( LJ 8/85), a look at stills in North Carolina, have established him as a sensitive observer of out-of-the-way places and experiences. Here, he turns to Florida's vast but largely unknown sugar cane industry and the rural communities--Clewiston, Belle Glade, Pahokee, Moore Haven--where the cane is grown and harvested. Central to the story is the brutish life of the men, mostly Jamaicans or other West Indians, who work the fields. Poor and uneducated, they are exploited, says Wilkinson, by the U.S. Sugar Corporation and other large companies; as recently as 1942 charges of peonage were brought against U.S. Sugar. For serious social science collections and most Florida libraries.
- Kenneth F. Kister, Poynter Inst. for Media Studies, St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 263 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (September 2, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394573129
• ISBN-13: 978-0394573120
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,216,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Close to Home, November 21, 1999

By 

Frederick Naile (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Big Sugar: Seasons in the Canefields of Florida (Hardcover)

An extremely realistic portrait of the area that I was born in to and spent the first twenty years of my life. This book is so well researched and insightful that I learned many things about the industry that sustained my home town. More importantly though it introduces the reader to the poor immigrant workers that slave away to produce the sugar that most give no thought. If you would would like to be immersed in a world that you know nothing about and learn of a culture, while American, is as different as you may find this book will entertain and educate you.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An important work, May 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Big Sugar: Seasons in the Canefields of Florida (Hardcover)

This documentary of the life of Florida's sugarcane workers should be required reading for every legislator voting on the sugar industry's subsidies, every citizen living in the State of Florida, and every person who consumes sugar in the U.S. As the book is focused social ills, it subsequently fails to adequately address the issue of the crop's environmental damage; and while it is a bit dated, it is yet a compelling look at the darker side of sugar.