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Sugar: The World Corrupted: From Slavery to Obesity
How did a simple commodity, once the prized monopoly of kings and princes, become an essential ingredient in the lives of millions, before mutating yet again into the cause of a global health epidemic?
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. While sugar consumption remains higher than ever—in some countries as high as 100lbs per head per year—some advertisements even proudly proclaim that their product contains no sugar.
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.
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.
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. While sugar consumption remains higher than ever—in some countries as high as 100lbs per head per year—some advertisements even proudly proclaim that their product contains no sugar.
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.
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.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published July 11, 2017
About the author
James Walvin
83 books23 followersJames Walvin taught for many years at the University of York where he is now Professor of History Emeritus. He also held visiting positions in the Caribbean, the U.S.A. and Australia. He won the prestigious Martin Luther King Memorial Prize for his book Black and White, and has published widely on the history of slavery and the slave trade. His book The People's Game was a pioneering study of the history of football and remains in print thirty years after its first publication.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
July 9, 2022
This book about sugar is not really about sugar; it should be called, What we did with sugar. We get no botanical description, no analysis of the soil types needed, light levels, root depths, pests, colours of stems in different varieties, no pictures except on the book covers. The author is a historian but not a botanist. He assumes we all know what he knows so well from researching the history of a sugar plantation; but for people who have seen something looking like bamboo on the tv once or twice, that's not the case. Similarly he presumes we know as much as we need to know about sugarbeet. Not a single mention of eel worms or the EU forcing Ireland to stop growing sugarbeet. No mention of the possibility of making biofuel from sugar, as is being done. No explanation of why honey is so much dearer than sugar or why bees are under threat.
What the book does cover, admirably, is the movement of honey and sugar around the early trading world, the sugar confectionery of the medieval world, the spread of the trappings of wealth down to the middle market and the poor. The author just says people liked the taste, but now and again he drops a mention that sugar provides energy. How much energy? Again, a scientist would tell us.
Googling it I immediately get:
"According to the USDA, 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar has 16 calories or 32 calories for 2 teaspoons. Brown sugar, packed, has 17 calories per teaspoon and powdered sugar has 10 calories per teaspoon." Livestrong.com
Adding energy to food and drink helped the poor disproportionately because they did most of the physical work.
As in another book I've read on The Potato, a dense, energy-full carbohydrate was needed to power the human brain and muscle (the author doesn't mention our brain runs on carbohydrates) towards the society we have today. As the potato also contains many benefits it provides a better food.
Sugar was produced by sheer hard work; this meant slavery, well covered, and the forced movement of African people around the world. The author doesn't mention the stat I've read elsewhere that slaves lived eighteen months to three years at most in the cane fields. Then when slavery was abolished, indentured labour, much of it from India or Asia, was used, including in Hawaii. This all only ended with mechanisation. The amounts of bulk sugar shipped around the world are hard to imagine. As the author points out, native ecologies were destroyed forever by plantations.
Some of the book is hard to read, due to the historical cruelty. The section towards the end about sugar and obesity is just as astonishing. If you have read Michael Moss' book 'Salt Sugar Fat', you'll know most of it. The high fructose corn syrup byproduct used to make fizzy drinks in America cheaply - because subsidised by the state - instead of cane sugar has addicted a nation or two to teeth-rotting, obesity inducing, money-stealing, plastic-fouling drinks (plastic not mentioned by the author) and sugar is disguised and added to food, because it is cheap.
Don't buy fizzy drinks; and read all food labels or make from scratch.
Bibliography P293 - 296, with numbered references after that. I counted 16 names which I could be sure were female.
I read this book from the RDS Library. This is an unbiased review.
What the book does cover, admirably, is the movement of honey and sugar around the early trading world, the sugar confectionery of the medieval world, the spread of the trappings of wealth down to the middle market and the poor. The author just says people liked the taste, but now and again he drops a mention that sugar provides energy. How much energy? Again, a scientist would tell us.
Googling it I immediately get:
"According to the USDA, 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar has 16 calories or 32 calories for 2 teaspoons. Brown sugar, packed, has 17 calories per teaspoon and powdered sugar has 10 calories per teaspoon." Livestrong.com
Adding energy to food and drink helped the poor disproportionately because they did most of the physical work.
As in another book I've read on The Potato, a dense, energy-full carbohydrate was needed to power the human brain and muscle (the author doesn't mention our brain runs on carbohydrates) towards the society we have today. As the potato also contains many benefits it provides a better food.
Sugar was produced by sheer hard work; this meant slavery, well covered, and the forced movement of African people around the world. The author doesn't mention the stat I've read elsewhere that slaves lived eighteen months to three years at most in the cane fields. Then when slavery was abolished, indentured labour, much of it from India or Asia, was used, including in Hawaii. This all only ended with mechanisation. The amounts of bulk sugar shipped around the world are hard to imagine. As the author points out, native ecologies were destroyed forever by plantations.
Some of the book is hard to read, due to the historical cruelty. The section towards the end about sugar and obesity is just as astonishing. If you have read Michael Moss' book 'Salt Sugar Fat', you'll know most of it. The high fructose corn syrup byproduct used to make fizzy drinks in America cheaply - because subsidised by the state - instead of cane sugar has addicted a nation or two to teeth-rotting, obesity inducing, money-stealing, plastic-fouling drinks (plastic not mentioned by the author) and sugar is disguised and added to food, because it is cheap.
Don't buy fizzy drinks; and read all food labels or make from scratch.
Bibliography P293 - 296, with numbered references after that. I counted 16 names which I could be sure were female.
I read this book from the RDS Library. This is an unbiased review.
April 14, 2018
This is an incredible history of how the introduction of sugar has changed so much of our world. I was surprised to learn how little I knew about how this little ingredient came to be. Meticulously research, this book brings the reader from the 15th century up through the modern world, covering the depth of the slave trade to the way that sugar has impacted global health and how governments have gone out of their way to protect the sugar trade to the detriment of millions. I was truly shocked at so much of what this book uncovered. I've been recommending this book to so many people. A real eye-opener.
April 22, 2018
While it did get better starting around chapter 11, there was not a lot of new information here. I didn’t think the tone regarding slavery was appropriate. The author discussed it in a very matter of fact way. If you’re going to discuss how sugar contributed to an increase in slavery then you better discuss the horrors and the long-term consequences of that horror otherwise the entire point of discussing it is lost. To a lesser degree, the author also did this with the nutritional effects of sugar. Okay we know it contributes to obesity but what about the medical horrors of diabetes, kidney disease, and cancer?
July 7, 2019
The history of sugar was fascinating, which covered around 2/3 of the book. The final 1/3 of the book could be summarized in two words: eat healthy.
August 15, 2019
There are some good reviews already on Goodreads making valid criticisms of this book, usually scoring a 3 star. I give it 4 because despite the flaws, this is a topic I am hungry (pun intended) for more information on.
I heard rumours about the slavery history of sugar 23 years ago, before that, i had no hint of the political aspect of this 'food stuff'. I have been on an odd journey of renunciation, giving up tobacco, alcohol and more recently caffeine. Sugar is my next personal development project.
It is not that I am some health fanatic, and while I do buy the direct link between sugar and obesity, it is more that I resent the compulsive appeal and cynical marketing manufacturers use to exploit the human weakness for the sweet. Perhaps I have an exaggerated need for control. Perhaps my desire for ingestive autonomy is healthy. I want to believe the latter.
I am not sure the means do always equal the ends (nor the ends justify the means), but the oppression of Africans in order to exploit their labour, so that the Europeans could enjoy the pleasure and profit from this product, does seem to bear upon the ongoing status and position of this substance within the global food system. Market forces may claim to be apolitical, but this is rarely the case in practice.
The personal is political for both women and men, when it comes to the loss of control this substance can engender. In its crystalline form, it makes me think of a symbolic representation of crack cocaine. There is nothing more corrosive of self respect than not being able to stop after the second doughnut. You might say "that is on you", but epidemiology points to a more complex picture.
This book is not a one size fits all solution to the ignorance surrounding the health and other issues concerning sugar, but I highly recommend it as a primer so we can start planting the seeds of better management of personal and social reduction of the role sugar plays in eating.
Sugar - too much of a good thing, or sweet poison? James Walvin has made a nice resource to launch the reader into further research on the topic.
I heard rumours about the slavery history of sugar 23 years ago, before that, i had no hint of the political aspect of this 'food stuff'. I have been on an odd journey of renunciation, giving up tobacco, alcohol and more recently caffeine. Sugar is my next personal development project.
It is not that I am some health fanatic, and while I do buy the direct link between sugar and obesity, it is more that I resent the compulsive appeal and cynical marketing manufacturers use to exploit the human weakness for the sweet. Perhaps I have an exaggerated need for control. Perhaps my desire for ingestive autonomy is healthy. I want to believe the latter.
I am not sure the means do always equal the ends (nor the ends justify the means), but the oppression of Africans in order to exploit their labour, so that the Europeans could enjoy the pleasure and profit from this product, does seem to bear upon the ongoing status and position of this substance within the global food system. Market forces may claim to be apolitical, but this is rarely the case in practice.
The personal is political for both women and men, when it comes to the loss of control this substance can engender. In its crystalline form, it makes me think of a symbolic representation of crack cocaine. There is nothing more corrosive of self respect than not being able to stop after the second doughnut. You might say "that is on you", but epidemiology points to a more complex picture.
This book is not a one size fits all solution to the ignorance surrounding the health and other issues concerning sugar, but I highly recommend it as a primer so we can start planting the seeds of better management of personal and social reduction of the role sugar plays in eating.
Sugar - too much of a good thing, or sweet poison? James Walvin has made a nice resource to launch the reader into further research on the topic.
March 6, 2021
It's as though James Walvin had the makings of a very fit and trim article on his hands, but gave in to a literary compulsion to pack on the pages until it became the flabby and and obese book we have before us. There's an important story here, but Walvin, with his repetitive and rambling prose, only partially succeeds in bringing it to light. The first part, about the relationship between sugar and slavery, is the most interesting. The second part, about obesity and the infusion of sugar into contemporary diets, is much less so. Walvin repeats himself continuously, and generally does his best to bore his readers to the point of needing a sugar high to make it through the book awake.
January 26, 2020
From the first paragraph this is a poorly written and incredibly repetitive book. (He uses the word "shop" three times in the first two sentences?) It's like a bad college term paper, verbose but lacking content. This is a British guy trying to explain how America hooked the world on sugar but he's out of touch with realities of this country, writing from an academic perspective instead of a practical one. To blame much of it on breakfast cereals and sodas is simplistic. Then to hear him lecture on the dangers of obesity while looking at his rotund jacket photo means that he's not even following his own claims.
It told me almost nothing new and seemed like a rehash of things he read online. There is no real depth to it, the topics are incomplete, and while the title and cover make it sound like there is a lot about slavery that is only a small portion of the story. There's little covering the health arguments over the product. The author misses so much about the history of sugar it shocking this even got published. Don't waste your time.
It told me almost nothing new and seemed like a rehash of things he read online. There is no real depth to it, the topics are incomplete, and while the title and cover make it sound like there is a lot about slavery that is only a small portion of the story. There's little covering the health arguments over the product. The author misses so much about the history of sugar it shocking this even got published. Don't waste your time.
November 20, 2019
It was a chore getting through this book. Not because the topic was uninteresting, but because of the clumsy writing (I mean, "...buying supportive scientific support." Really?), the circuitous points, the strange structure. Some factoids were so interesting, they are repeated several times like a broken record player.
It really is frustrating. The books gives us facts and figures but does an insufficient job in dissecting them. It is also a little difficult to care when it is apparent on the outset that the author's true passion topic is historical slavery and its effects. Not sugar.
The history of sugar is fascinating indeed but if you want to read about it, I would suggest a different book.
It really is frustrating. The books gives us facts and figures but does an insufficient job in dissecting them. It is also a little difficult to care when it is apparent on the outset that the author's true passion topic is historical slavery and its effects. Not sugar.
The history of sugar is fascinating indeed but if you want to read about it, I would suggest a different book.
June 13, 2021
I think this could have been a lot better had the author not repeated points every few sentences. The information was interesting, but by the third or fourth time you've read a page only to come back to that same information worded slightly differently... It grates.
June 30, 2019
3.5 last 4 chapters were unnecessary otherwise an interesting read.
April 24, 2022
Disturbingly fascinating.
April 30, 2021
Does our society sure love sugar! You can tell by looking around you or, hell, by looking at your fellow Zoom participants. Sugar is so powerful that it has given rise to a new mental disease: fatphobia. You can't be fatphobic if there aren't any fat people around: logically impossible! In fact, before sugar came around to our society, we were fatphilic. Just look at the Venus dolls discovered in ancient Europe! But, alas, what is scarce is what has value, and today fat is certainly not scarce. A combination of genetic decline (see Sarraf et al. - Modernity and Cultural Decline), a lack of physical exercise due to new jobs, and food engineering has lead to the Obesity Epidemic.
Anyways, my digression has gone long enough. Walvin does a great job of tracing one major factor which contributed to our body proportionality today: sugar. Where did it come from? how did we get addicted to it? and when did cavities start to become a problem? are just a few of the questions answered in this book. A great recommendation for those who care about their health and attempts to destroy it.
Anyways, my digression has gone long enough. Walvin does a great job of tracing one major factor which contributed to our body proportionality today: sugar. Where did it come from? how did we get addicted to it? and when did cavities start to become a problem? are just a few of the questions answered in this book. A great recommendation for those who care about their health and attempts to destroy it.
August 18, 2018
First half where he talks about the slave trade is super interesting, but when he dives into obesity in the second half, it is boring and uninteresting. It's two books--one very good, the other one banal.
July 27, 2018
Interesting, but repetitive.
March 16, 2020
Preparing a lecture on sugar for my class in agricultural history, I made heavy use of both this work by Walvin and the older classic by Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power. The Mintz work is more overtly one of scholarship and also more ideological, reflecting the Marxist cast of the its author. Walvin and Mintz are complementary, however, in that they both depict sugar as a social evil, but each focuses on different times and people. Mintz presents us with the bitter irony that sugar came from a cruel system of colonial production and, reaching back across the Atlantic, got its talons into the industrial working class, providing the calories that kept them functioning on the job while destroying their teeth and metabolisms. Waltz is more directly concerned with the effects of sugar on health, not only obesity but also blood-sugar and cardiovascular ills. Together the books cause us to reflect critically on our history and on our lifestyles.
August 18, 2018
This book is worth reading and charts the history of our dependence on and relationship to sugar, from its use in medicines in earlier societies, its close association with the transatlantic slave trade to the detrimental impact it is having on our health in modern society.
The coverage of sugar production and its derivatives during the slave trade is relatively detailed.
The author also outlines the widespread adoption of this substance as a flavouring in our foods. While obesity is one of the outcomes identified by its excessive use, the author could have devoted time to the other health-related issues that we are now seeing like diabetes, cancer.
The coverage of sugar production and its derivatives during the slave trade is relatively detailed.
The author also outlines the widespread adoption of this substance as a flavouring in our foods. While obesity is one of the outcomes identified by its excessive use, the author could have devoted time to the other health-related issues that we are now seeing like diabetes, cancer.
October 10, 2017
“We should remember that we found the island full of people, whom we erased from the face of the earth, filling it with dogs and beasts.”
So wrote Las Casas, summing up the damage inflicted upon the Caribbean by white Europeans. Although we will never know the exact number of people living in the Caribbean when Europeans first appeared, apparently the most accurate figures suggest that there were around 2 million living in the region, “within a century, all had vanished.”
From cavity ridden royals in 17th Century Europe, to obese 21st Century North Americans amped up on HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup), Walvin takes us on quite a heart breaking yet compelling journey through the modern history of sugar. From Sao Tome and Principe to Brazil across to Australia, the Indian and Pacific Islands, he illustrates that, “Wherever sugar plantations took root, they brought about massive changes in their wake. They changed the local ecology, altered local demography and transformed the politics of society at large.”
Walvin shows how the popularity of caffeinated drinks in major, western European cities like Amsterdam, Paris and London and eventually North America, greatly increased the demand for sugar and decreased its price, eventually making it an essential ingredient for even the poor majority. It was interesting to see that initially tea drinking was more popular in the Netherlands than in the UK, due to the Dutch having direct trade links with China. Tea was sold in London by the 1650s and at the time coffee was initially cheaper than tea. Apparently in 1700, Brits consumed ten times as much coffee as tea. Twenty years later they began to change.
As well as sugar’s relationship with caffeinated drinks, he also shows how it gave birth to rum, and he demonstrates the importance of rum as a currency and tool around the world, and how it’s widespread love and use, lead to it being seen as a vital part of a soldier’s rations. Apparently the Royal Navy were still given it in their rations as late as 1970.
This is very much two different books, the first half focuses on the slave trade and sugar plantations and the emergence and growth of sugar in the western world. The second half, Walvin looks at sugar’s impact from the second half of the 20th century, up to the current day. It’s in the second half, where it starts to find it's flow and get really interesting. It’s here that he pulls out all the big facts and stats. In one sense the story of “big sugar” adheres to a depressingly familiar template as seen in any other “big” multi-national conglomerates. As he says, “Although sugar is rarely lumped together with railroads, steel and petroleum, its cartel arrangements followed a very similar path-and with similar consequences for the way the industry was run.”
Some lesser known facts emerge, such as, “In Britain, in a five year period, the NHS spent £7 million adapting equipment to cater for obese patients-bigger beds, wheelchairs and mortuary slabs. And more than 800 ambulances have been designed or altered to cater for obese patients.” He also cites examples elsewhere, like the building of the new Yankee stadium, which contained 4000 fewer seats, to cope with the increased average size of fans.
Other facts have been known and aired for long enough, but this doesn’t make them any less shocking, “More than two thirds of the current US population are overweight. Not a single state in the Union has an obesity rate below 20%. By 2030, there will be a predicted 65 million more obese people living in the USA.” And what about, “57% of African-American women were obese in 2011-14.”
In the US, “In 2004-05, the US House of Representatives approved a bill with a curious but revealing title: ‘The Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act’. The ‘Cheeseburger Bill’, as it became known, was designed to absolve the fast food industry of all the blame for people who became overweight via their diet to shield the food industry from being sued.” (deep, exasperated breath…) only in America!
He gives plenty of attention to the often cynical and manipulative role the media played, citing all the billions of dollars that have been ploughed into marketing and advertising nutritionally redundant, sugar loaded products, that are often no more than glorified poison, but still, they are routinely protected and free from genuine regulation by lobbyists, lawyers, politicians and paid off scientists.
Walvin mentions the recent case of the (now deceased) Harvard professors, who were exposed in 2016, as having taken money to manipulate their findings to favour the sugar industry. If this is what is happening at the elite levels of the scientific and education community, what else is going on elsewhere?...Also, when you have a company like Nestle, who enjoyed a revenue in 2012 that was larger than the GDP of all but seventy of the world’s nations, what chance or hope do we think that there is of any meaningful and consistent regulation being implemented in the US?...
This is one of those books that will have you shaking your head in frustration and disbelief. It is also really well researched, highly informative, genuinely interesting and raises awareness of a problem that has arguably never been more dangerous or relevant, than it is today. Walvin shows that although the game has very much been rigged in favour of “big sugar” and other behemoths like them, he also dangles just enough hope, suggesting that there are ways that this obesity epidemic can be tackled and that change, in whatever form is on the horizon.
December 3, 2018
I was inspired to read this after visiting a former sugar cane plantation in Louisiana and hearing about how literally back-breaking it was for enslaved people to work. And *wow*, the subtitle "the world corrupted" is certainly right. For such a simple little thing, sugar has certainly put millions of the people on both ends of the misery/delight scale. Informative.
June 27, 2021
The title of this book say it all. Topics like human definition of sweeteners, how sugar evolved, slavery, colonialism, food industry, human cousin development over the centuries, health of teeth, and obesity around the world were all discussed briefly in the chapters of this book.
November 24, 2022
Solid repetitive points about the harm of sugar, and informative history of it from the origins to present day. I learned from this book that Coca Cola used US military assets to create Coca Cola plants during world war 2 in other countries to provide Coca Cola to troops, they also heavily profited from this and it set them up to be a global soft drink producer. This is one of the interesting facts in this book that kept me turning the pages.
November 7, 2019
We all no i like a good food related book.
Both this was so boring and i didn't learn anything at all.
just a to long book report on sugar.
Both this was so boring and i didn't learn anything at all.
just a to long book report on sugar.
June 22, 2018
Some of the factors surrounding this world changing ingredient were known to me before reading but the author brings it all together perfectly. From slavery to the obesity epidemic sugar is there. From Caribbean plantations to the forced annexation of the Hawaii islands its there again. Never knew that so many historical events and present challenges were caused by our collective sweet tooth. Sure that it wont be the last.
May 14, 2019
James Walvin has done a great job with this book. He manages to capture the historical influence of sugar along with the reasons we love to eat it. It is well-written and beautifully designed.
The book covers sugar history throughout the world. The author is an Englishman, so the focus is the UK and the US, but other areas are not ignored. He argues that the global sugar trade has greatly impacted all societies associated with it. As the title implies, slavery is a large concern for the periods in which the practice was legal. The effect of sugar upon health is also a major topic.
The book was published in 2018, so the data provided includes recent information. Walvin’s writing style is easy to follow and not overly technical, so the book reads well for the non-academic. The author’s personality shines through, and the book is fun to read. Part historic exploration and part cautionary tale, this text really should be on everyone’s shelf. Sugar and the trade thereof are so ubiquitous that I think most anyone who would have access to the book has had his world changed by the white stuff, making the book both timely and relevant.
End matter includes a bibliography for further reading suggestions as well as fact-checking. There is an end notes section called “Numbered References.” There is also a general index.
I rate this book 5 of 5 stars as Walvin has accomplished what he set out to do in an attractive and enjoyable manner. I highly recommend reading this book along with Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History by Sidney Mintz. I actually slightly prefer Mintz’s writing style to Walvin’s, but the latter has more up to date data. I highly recommend Walvin’s text to all and sundry.
The book covers sugar history throughout the world. The author is an Englishman, so the focus is the UK and the US, but other areas are not ignored. He argues that the global sugar trade has greatly impacted all societies associated with it. As the title implies, slavery is a large concern for the periods in which the practice was legal. The effect of sugar upon health is also a major topic.
The book was published in 2018, so the data provided includes recent information. Walvin’s writing style is easy to follow and not overly technical, so the book reads well for the non-academic. The author’s personality shines through, and the book is fun to read. Part historic exploration and part cautionary tale, this text really should be on everyone’s shelf. Sugar and the trade thereof are so ubiquitous that I think most anyone who would have access to the book has had his world changed by the white stuff, making the book both timely and relevant.
End matter includes a bibliography for further reading suggestions as well as fact-checking. There is an end notes section called “Numbered References.” There is also a general index.
I rate this book 5 of 5 stars as Walvin has accomplished what he set out to do in an attractive and enjoyable manner. I highly recommend reading this book along with Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History by Sidney Mintz. I actually slightly prefer Mintz’s writing style to Walvin’s, but the latter has more up to date data. I highly recommend Walvin’s text to all and sundry.
November 26, 2020
I blame this bad rating on the lack of a good editor, rather than the knowledgeable author. It was SO dry, I could only make it about 20% of the way through. Reading this book was like listening to a monotone professor lecture—if the author has a voice, it certainly doesn’t come across in the pages. About 1/4 of this book could be cut due to repetitiveness and expansion of examples could be added. There are so many places where the author will briefly mention something interesting and then quickly move on to the continued monotonous timeline of events.
I read this in succession to some other books about agriculture and while taking a World Economics course, so I thought it would be a logical next step. I gave the book 2 stars, instead of one, because the 20% that I did struggle through taught me about how intricately involved the slave trade was with the sugar trade and world economics as a whole. The author is knowledgeable and brings a new light to my interactions with sugar, but unfortunately did not have a good editor. I’m certain there are other books out there that provide the same information in a more engaging way.
I read this in succession to some other books about agriculture and while taking a World Economics course, so I thought it would be a logical next step. I gave the book 2 stars, instead of one, because the 20% that I did struggle through taught me about how intricately involved the slave trade was with the sugar trade and world economics as a whole. The author is knowledgeable and brings a new light to my interactions with sugar, but unfortunately did not have a good editor. I’m certain there are other books out there that provide the same information in a more engaging way.
January 5, 2018
Reading this book was an eye-opener, though it took a while for it to really pick up steam. It talks about the history of sugar-how it became a precious commodity that was granted government subsidies and protection. It also mentioned how it affected demographics- slave trade and workers’ migration to lands. It mentions how government intervened and became an unknowing marketer for soda companies. This book touches on a lot of things that will make readers rethink their relationship with sugar.
Access to review copy provided by the publisher.
Access to review copy provided by the publisher.
April 2, 2020
Though the author discusses an interesting topic, his habit of repeating himself endlessly and going around in circles is beyond irritation. Had a diligent editor been assigned to this book, he could have easily cut it to 1/5th of its size. The material presented is fairly limited and unnecessarily stretched out with an average of 10+ repetitions of each piece of information. A good way to read this book would be quickly skim over 80% of the text pausing only where some interesting new information is presented.
February 4, 2018
This book needs to make its way into main stream media of every kind and be read by students studying health, environmental issues, human development, I could go on... So well done and so obviously relevant in our world today that I would not hesitate to recommend Sugar by James Walvin to anyone whether they're mainly nonfiction readers or not. I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot while doing so. It rightfully earned its 5 stars from this reader.
February 5, 2021
A fascinating read. However, the book could have benefited from more rigorous editing. At times, I was missing a coherent narrative and there were too many repetitions for my taste. Some fo the facts, however, made up for those structural errors.
April 18, 2020
It’s really unfortunate that this book is so boring when it talks on a subject that should be so interesting.
July 4, 2020
Sugar and slavery. Roots of systemic racism. Fascinating topic. But where was the editor? Annoyingly repetitive. Hard to read because of it.
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