Customer Reviews

Sugar : A Bittersweet History

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Elizabeth Abbott's elegant and convincing prose, and her adroit presentation of detail make for an engaging, informative read. Only problem is, there's a long excursus on slavery which threatens to colonize the whole book. The chapters which deal with sugar itself constitute a valuable narrative that showcases impressive expository skills. But, oh, dear, someone got distracted. Or maybe that same someone was planning two books, and couldn't decide which one to finish. Or maybe the manuscript was delayed, and a publisher counseled the author to fill in the gaps with material that was somehow related.

What it comes down to is, the chapters on slavery, which make up a third of the book, give the reader a precise, accurate, and chilling account of the Peculiar Institution's history, chiefly in the Carribean. But there's so much overlap with other, magisterial histories of slavery and the transatlantic trade, that this lengthy account is nearly superfluous. And sugar itself fades from the horizon as the slavery discussion takes on a life of its own, complete with tragic human interest cameos which appear to derive in part from Victorian Octoroon literature.

The book on sugar was a tour-de-force. The other one, on the slave trade and slavery, I'd read before elsewhere. An editor might have reduced the slavery discussion to a few chapters, but I guess that wasn't on the agenda.

I'm looking forward to Ms. Abbott's next contribution, with the hope that it will not drift so far off topic.

Elizabeth Abbot's book, Sugar, is an intimate work that details the history of sugar and how it became on of the most popular and widely used commodities in the world. Abbot shows the reader how sugar is an integral part of world history by beginning the book with a history of early sugar plantations in the Caribbean. From here, she continues by focusing on sugar's involvement with the slave trade, territorial struggles, and modern politics. Abbot is not shy about unpleasant details - in fact she relays many graphic stories from enslaved workers on Southern plantations about their treatment and their relationships with their masters, overseers, drivers, and others. This raw and unapologetic point of view is captivating and focuses on the harsh cruelty of enslaved women and the ruthless treatment that many sugar cane workers endured even after emancipation. Overall, I found Sugar to be very well written, well researched, and an enjoyable read.

Abbott clearly lays out the interwoven history of sugar, slavery, and global trade. An easy to read and enjoyable account of the many battles waged and the lives affected by our desire for sugar.

this is one of the most insightful and best written books I have ever read. Abbott writes in a captivating voice and gives intelligent, well-researched and often times poignant information in a way that makes you think.
Fabulous!
Those who love non-fiction will be instantly in love, and those who are not usually fans will be won over.
A MUST-READ!

This book is a revealing and informative story about one of the most interesting members of the pantry. Although I will continue to saturate my coffee with its sweetness, I will never look at my sugar container in the same way. Everything from the Caribbean slavery accounts, to the modern analysis on sugar lobbyists is fascinating. Abbot's research in Haiti is inspiring. It is amazing what kind of information we are sheltered from by the massive industries that pump sugar into our diets, and I'm infinitely thankful for writers like Abbot who do the research and publish books as didactic as this.

Well researched. Well written.

This history of sugar tells the story of sugar with slavery, its place in trade, aristocracy etc.

And like all history, it tends to repeat itself. In the end, there is an unhealthy tyranny in sugar.

Abbott has wriitten an incisive overview of the history of sugar and its affect on past and present societies. The information about sugar's role in the slave trade will be enough to send you back to high fructose corn syrup. A great read for the archair historian.

Sugar: A Bittersweet History tells the story of sugar in the world and explores how its cultivation created a new form of slavery, began the fast food industry, and has led to modern obesity dangers. From its roots in the 18th century when European businessmen turned the Caribbean islands into sugarcane farms to sugar's move from a luxury item to an everyday staple, and its influence on the concept of meals, this is a 'must' for any culinary collection.

I picked up this book on recommendation of NPR's summer reading list, and boy!--what a great book. The history of sugar sounds interesting enough for perhaps a chapter or two, but with ELizabth Abbott skillfully crafting the narrative, a full 400 pages just fly by, reading at times like a novel! I, too, like other readers here, will never eat sugar again without remembering the painful, terrifying and bitter legacy that accompanies it to my taste buds!

I saw a review in a newspaper and decided to read this book for insights into what I thought was a very lucrative industry that populated the British aristocracy. I was looking for insights to pick future gravy-train industries for investing.

This book has amazing non-stop details, and is very well-written by its Candadian author. Canadian women sure seem to know how to write non-fiction: no padding or contrived "themes," forced pop ideas, etc. This book is a non-stop detailed recounting of interesting facts. It was a relief from the stream of bad American books I've read the last few years (and that keep coming out). If this were written by an American male, it would try to hammer a square peg of details into a round hole of a some hyped-up clever anthropological pop theory. Or we'd read non-stop descriptions of characters (as if the author was told by his editor to "personalize" the characters: make them exciting and make the book artificially exciting).

One sees in this book's non-stop, unexpected, details how sugar was always a hazardous business, with non-stop surprise catastrophes, small problems, and bankruptcies. I'll bet an American writer would not have mentioned inconvenient details like rats in the fields. (That led me to think that someone should write a book on the history of rats in agriculture: rats were tied to the Black Death but I never thought much about rats in agriculture except when I saw a documentary about rats in India collecting and hoarding rice grains).