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 21
... sucrose accumulation has continued to be this species above all , the so - called noble cane , with soft , sweet , juicy stalks that grow as thick as two inches , and twelve to fifteen feet high , when mature . Cane is propagated ...
... sucrose accumulation has continued to be this species above all , the so - called noble cane , with soft , sweet , juicy stalks that grow as thick as two inches , and twelve to fifteen feet high , when mature . Cane is propagated ...
Page 197
... sucrose production that reached the market amounted to some 250,000 tons . 15 By 1880 that figure had risen fifteenfold , to 3.8 million tons . From 1880 until the onset of World War I - the period when sugar production was technically ...
... sucrose production that reached the market amounted to some 250,000 tons . 15 By 1880 that figure had risen fifteenfold , to 3.8 million tons . From 1880 until the onset of World War I - the period when sugar production was technically ...
Page 206
... sucrose content of many prepared and processed foods that do not taste sweet ( such as flour- dredged meats , poultry , and fish that are baked , broiled , or deep- fried ) is an important source of the increase in sucrose consumption ...
... sucrose content of many prepared and processed foods that do not taste sweet ( such as flour- dredged meats , poultry , and fish that are baked , broiled , or deep- fried ) is an important source of the increase in sucrose consumption ...
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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