19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lively and engrossing history of the social impact of sugar, August 7, 2004
This review is from: Bittersweet: The Story of Sugar (Paperback)
This is a wonderfully interesting and engrossing history of a major food crop filled with interesting details concerning people and events. Although Peter Macinnis traces the story of sugar from its origins in New Guinea through to the 20th century, he does so in a very entertaining rather than comprehensive way. As such, this is a good introduction, but will leave the reader with many questions unanswered.
The subtitle, The Story of Sugar could really have been The Story of Sugar and Slavery since, according to the author, this form of forced labor has been so integral to the success of the crop. In fact I am sure that the "Bitter" half of the title is a reference to slavery. Macinnis states that not only the institution of slavery, but also the global politics of Colonialism, has its foundation in the global production of sugar.
So as you can see, the world as we know it has to a large extent been molded by the story of sugar. Thus this book, or some other like it, is important reading for a good understanding of modern world history. Being an Australian gives the author just enough distance from the European and American sugar empires to tell the story with a balanced and somewhat objective point of view.
The book is illustrated with black-and-white maps and each chapter ends with a historic sugar recipe. There is a two page glossary of terms related to sugar production as well as a seven page bibliography of further readings. There are no footnotes to break the narrative.
This is a great introduction to the story of one of the most important cash crops in world history.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An evenhanded introduction to an important food, November 10, 2006
This review is from: Bittersweet: The Story of Sugar (Paperback)
It isn't easy to find books about sugar that do not grind an ax, usually antisugar, but not always. Peter Macinnis's little book -- hardly more than an extended essay, really -- avoids this error, with wit and flair.
Sugar cane has been around for perhaps 9,000 years as a cultivated crop, and sugarmaking not nearly so long. Macinnis rightly concentrates on the past 400 years, when sugar broke out into the world. It is now produced, from cane or beet, in more than 100 countries.
One fault of this book is that it does not make clear how very important sugar remains, especially in the diets of poorer people. The very poor do not eat sugar, but as soon as people rise above semistarvation, one of the first things they do is buy sugar. Sugar supplies nearly 10% of calories worldwide. To Americans, who worry about their waistlines, this may seem like a bad thing. But calories are inadequate in the diets of hundreds of millions of people. Sugar is excellent food.
Sugar growing and manufacturing, however, has not been excellent. Cane does not lend itself to small farming -- for one thing, in the best sugar areas, it is a two-year crop. This means plantations, and plantations usually mean exploitation of labor. In cane's case, slavery. Not always, however. Hawaii's sugar labor is the highest-paid agricultural labor in the world. But there's not much of it. Sugar today can be highly mechanized, but in much of the world labor is still cheaper than machines.
There is an enormous historical literature on sugar and slavery. Not much of it is easy reading and most of it assumes background information that most readers don't have. 'Bittersweet' is the best general introduction to sugar I have seen, fair and fairly sophisticated. Unlike, say, Mintz's book, mentioned in an earlier review.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bittersweet History, April 1, 2004
This review is from: Bittersweet: The Story of Sugar (Paperback)
Macinnis has written the exhaustive history of sugar cultivation and trade. I doubt anyone could do the job as well. His blend of fact and humour make for fascinating reading that rarely bogs down. Definitely a book to read, even for diabetics like myself!
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