Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern HistoryA fascinating persuasive history of how sugar has shaped the world, from European colonies to our modern diets In this eye-opening study, Sidney Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life, and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar, and reveals how closely interwoven are sugar's origins as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies with is use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new industrial proletariat. Finally, he considers how sugar has altered work patterns, eating habits, and our diet in modern times. "Like sugar, Mintz is persuasive, and his detailed history is a real treat." -San Francisco Chronicle |
From inside the book
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Page xv
... became interested in how those Europeans and North Americans became consumers . Follow- ing production to where and when it became consumption is what I mean by coming home . Most people in the Caribbean region , descendants of the ...
... became interested in how those Europeans and North Americans became consumers . Follow- ing production to where and when it became consumption is what I mean by coming home . Most people in the Caribbean region , descendants of the ...
Page 95
... became a new substance . In the eighteenth century , producing , shipping , refining , and taxing sugar became proportionately more effective sources of power for the powerful , since the sums of money involved were so much larger ...
... became a new substance . In the eighteenth century , producing , shipping , refining , and taxing sugar became proportionately more effective sources of power for the powerful , since the sums of money involved were so much larger ...
Page 133
... became widely avail- able . This chronology of successive additions is speculative , but it is reasonably accurate . It implies that a dessert course was the third , rather than the first , important sugar use for the poor .. The ...
... became widely avail- able . This chronology of successive additions is speculative , but it is reasonably accurate . It implies that a dessert course was the third , rather than the first , important sugar use for the poor .. The ...
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Common terms and phrases
Africa agricultural anthropology Arab Barbados became become Bemba beverages bitter bread Britain British British West Indies calories candy capitalism capitalist carbohydrates Caribbean changes chocolate classes coffee colonies commodities consumed consumption of sugar course cultural dessert drink Drummond and Wilbraham early eaten eating economic eighteenth century England English cuisine Europe European figures French fruit habits history of sugar honey human Ibid important increase islands Jamaica Jeronymites juice labor labor power less liquid London luxury meal meanings meat medicine mill modern molasses nation nineteenth century nutrition per-capita plantation planters poor pounds price of sugar probably proletarian puddings Puerto Rico quantities refined rich seventeenth century sixteenth century slave slavery social society spice substances sucrose sugar cane sugar consumption sugar industry sugar production sumption sweet sweetened syrup taste tea and sugar tobacco trade transformed treacle tropical United Kingdom West Indian Wilbraham 1958