Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science [Hardcover]

Marc Aronson (Author), Marina Budhos (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2010

When this award-winning husband-and-wife team discovered that they each had sugar in their family history, they were inspired to trace the globe-spanning story of the sweet substance and to seek out the voices of those who led bitter sugar lives. The trail ran like a bright band from religious ceremonies in India to Europe’s Middle Ages, then on to Columbus, who brought the first cane cuttings to the Americas. Sugar was the substance that drove the bloody slave trade and caused the loss of countless lives but it also planted the seeds of revolution that led to freedom in the American colonies, Haiti, and France. With songs, oral histories, maps, and over 80 archival illustrations, here is the story of how one product allows us to see the grand currents of world history in new ways. Time line, source notes, bibliography, index.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Gr 8 Up–This meticulously researched, brutally honest, compelling book offers readers a different way to look at many events over the past 200 years or so. The title says it all. From the slave trade through abolition; from revolutions (American, French, and Haitian) to the Louisiana Purchase; from the decline of honey to the rise of saccharine, these events and many more are directly traced to the cultivation and production of sugar cane around the world. With a focus on slavery, Aronson and Budhos demonstrate how this one crop, with its unique harvesting needs, helped to bring about a particularly brutal incarnation of slavery. What makes this such a captivating read is that the book has a jigsaw-puzzle feel as the authors connect seemingly disparate threads and bring readers to the larger picture by highlighting the smaller details hidden within. Primary-source materials such as photographs, interview excerpts, and maps are included throughout, making this an indispensable part of any history collection. The chapter entitled “How We Researched and Wrote This Book” will be of particular interest to teachers and librarians.Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA
© Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

As the title suggests, this stirring, highly detailed history of the sugar trade reaches across time and around the globe. Framed by the authors’ family connections to the subject, the chapters move from New Guinea, where humans are believed to have first cultivated sugar cane 10,000 years ago, to its spread across the ancient world. With a chapter titled “Hell,” the authors delve into brutal accounts of the rise of sugar plantations in the Caribbean and Hawaii. In the U.S., where the sugar story centered on Louisiana, even supposedly free states, such as New York, made fortunes in transporting and selling sugar grown by slaves. The book’s scope is ambitious, but the clear, informal prose, along with maps and archival illustrations, makes the horrific connections with dramatic immediacy. A closing chapter about how Gandhi’s struggle for human rights affected the sugar trade brings in more of the authors’ stories. A teacher’s guide is available, and classroom discussion is sure to spark intense interest and further research, starting with the fully documented sources at the back. Grades 8-12. --Hazel Rochman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Clarion Books; 1 edition (November 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618574921
• ISBN-13: 978-0618574926
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,367 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > History > World > Slavery & Emancipation
  • #36 in Books > Teens > Education & Reference > History
  • #99 in Books > Teens > Education & Reference > Science & Technology

More About the Author

All of my books start with questions, and I hope they prompt readers to ask questions of their own.

I find history history endlessly fascinating. It is the detective story that yields us as the answer.

I try to write each book with the same care I would put into a novel, but with the same respect for truth as a judge in a court of law.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent short history of the social, political and economic effects of sugar August 24, 2010

By Deb Nam-Krane VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Although aimed at a younger audience, this title would be an excellent starting point for anyone who is interested in issues of food justice and social justice. It is a timely title as issues surrounding "factory farming" have come to the forefront of our social consciousness thanks to such works as Food, Inc., Supersize Me and, to some extent, An Inconvenient Truth. To hear people talk about it now, many would have us believe that it's a new corruption away from a "natural" system of farming and food production. However, as this title shows, people have been perfecting the famr as a factory- and people as machines- for almost a thousand years. The uncomfortable truth is that many of the things that we purchase cheaply and in large quantities involves some level of human exploitation.

This book traces the history of the sugar cane from it's wild origins in New Guinea through it's spread through India and then the Muslim world. The Muslims were the first ones to create a sugar plantation, where vast stretches of land were all about one crop. However, although they are the architects of the system, the problems of labor and the need for lumber aren't solved until the Europeans take over dominance of the trade.

In the space of two centuries, sugar goes from being a luxury commodity that kings are willing to pay small ransoms for to a relatively common household item. In a story familiar to those who worry about the cost of strawberries shipped across the country versus those grown a few towns away, the authors note that it is now cheaper to buy sugar from overseas than it is to buy honey produced down the road. And it still is.

The engine that drove sugar production was slavery (later indentured servitude). Although slavery in all forms can be brutal, it was particularly so for those involved in the sugar trade, and that was the majority of slaves. While North America purchases 500,000 or so slaves who grew into a population of 4 million by emancipation, the sugar producing islands took more than 2 million slaves over their history, but only a third of those were alive when they were emancipated. Again, sugar was brutal work.

Ironically, although sugar was what encouraged the enslavement of millions, it was also the weapon people used to later stop slavery in England through a boycott. (Similar strategies, the book notes, were also used in the movement led by Gandhi to end English rule in India by boycotting English-made products.)

It's a messy history- most modern plantations aren't filled with slaves, but most of the workers are still underpaid. The pictures taken in 2005 of young children in the Dominican Republic carrying cane on their backs is heart-breaking. This will leave it's readers thinking about the issues of food production past and present in a way that encourages them to ask questions rather than make too many conclusions. It will also encourage them, I think, to think about food justice in a way that, sadly, vegetable and fruit farming do not. Is there a child in this country that doesn't like sweet things?

This is not perfect: the tone is more strident than we usually see in history or social studies' texts, and I take issue with their characterization of pre-1000 AD Europe as a backwater; certainly more so than the Muslim world or other parts of Asia, but even at their lowest point Europe maintained trade ties with the rest of the world. Still, this is filled with information in a context that middle-school-aged children and olderwill be able to relate to and learn from.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Short History of Sugar November 24, 2010

By TammyJo Eckhart VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I was very amazed by the quality of the scholarship in this book. Not only are there a lot of historic photos, drawings, and even a few primary sources in this book geared toward 12 year old readers, but also a very thoughtful and at times blunt assessment of politics, human rights, and economics. When I taught at the college level this book sadly would have been the speed some students could handle as first year students. However, brighter 12 year old readers will be challenged by the information and encouraged to do more research.

I could certainly see this book in a classroom or for home school settings if the teachers are willing to confront the brutal conditions under which those who made sugar in all forms struggled and still struggle today to fulfill our collective sweet tooth. Modern sugar production is the one area where this book does not venture but I think given that it is really a history, that can be forgiven.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Mostly about Slavery, Forced Migration, Oppression and Freedom September 15, 2010

By Book Fan

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Gist: Except for the beginning, this middle-school book is not really about sugar, so it may or may not be what you are looking for.

It is mostly about how the enterprise of sugar (to the exclusion of other commodities) over the centuries caused enslavement and indentured servitude around the world, with all the brutality and oppression that accompanies these practices. Just as sugar is the historic excuse for these offensive practices, sugar is the excuse for writing a book that is really about how people have exploited people, and how the stirrings for abolition and freedom spread and grew over the centuries.

The authors have done an excellent job pulling together lots of interesting details from multiple sources to build this story of human abuse and forced migrations around the world. I even found their back notes interesting, and plan on tracking down some of the references they included. I like that they have provided backup websites for more information and for color versions of the b&w historic images.

Part I is about the discovery of "sweet cane" and how it spread around the old world, up to the time of Columbus. To me this was the most interesting part of the book. Our words for sugar and candy come from Sanskrit, reflecting how sugar spread to rest of the old world from India. I didn't know about the first university in Persia around 500AD, or the Champagne year-around trade fairs starting around 1150AD. It includes a bit of what is known about what meals consisted of then. I found this part very interesting and would like to read more along these lines, since this was only about 20 pages with large print and illustrations.

Part II is about slavery needed for sugar plantations, but Part III which is supposedly about freedom, and Part IV which is about more "modern" movements, are also mostly about oppression as well. This makes up the bulk of the book.

Besides this concentration on oppression of peoples over history, there are other issues with the the uneven coverage of sugar in this book:
- The story is incomplete (it stops almost 100 years ago), so leaves the impression that sugar is a force for social evil, but modern-day factories are more enlightened. It also ignores other uses for the product, such as ethanol and its production in places like Brazil. Finally, it would be interesting to address environmental issues with large-scale cane farming.
- The story concentrates on sugar as though it was the only commodity that had an effect on the world in the last several centuries. More contextual information would be good, like how much of the trade over the centuries consisted of sugar versus other goods such as grain, cotton, tobacco, ore, etc., and how much trade in these other commodities fueled the oppression that these authors blame entirely on sugar.

Finally, I am not sure who is the intended audience. In layout and writing style, it appears to be maybe an early middle school social studies book, but the materials talk about it being used for high school AP or IB studies. Also, the grimness of the topics, and concentration on human oppression, as well as incompleteness of the story, may make it unsuitable for some younger groups for whom the writing level is appropriate.