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Sugar: The world corrupted, from slavery to obesity

James Walvin

3.46 · Rating details · 306 ratings · 69 reviews

The story of sugar, and of mankind's desire for sweetness in food and drink is a compelling, though confusing story. It is also an historical story.

The story of mankind's love of sweetness - the need to consume honey, cane sugar, beet sugar and chemical sweeteners - has important historical origins. To take a simple example, two centuries ago, cane sugar was vital to the b ...more

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Hardcover, 352 pages

Published July 13th 2017 by Robinson (first published July 11th 2017)

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The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage

A History of Food

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Oct 05, 2017 Lisa rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I was a little bit disappointed with this book. I have been doing a lot of reading on both the history and health impact of sugar lately, and there are many other books on these topics that I would recommend over this one. I felt that the author was going around in circles since there was a lot of repetition and overlap between chapters. At the end of it I didn't really feel that the book had gone anywhere meaningful with its arguments and that the information presented was fairly unoriginal. Th ...more

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Apr 14, 2018 Crystal King rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

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 ...more

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Nov 18, 2019 Clare O'Beara rated it really liked it

Shelves: america-fact, economics, food, africa-historical, nature, non-fiction, africa-fact, america-historical

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 t 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 with 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. ...more

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Apr 20, 2018 Erica Clou rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010s, 2018, food, health, nutrition, nonfiction, 0-borrowed, anti-consumerism, read-male, economics

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 sug ...more

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Jun 30, 2019 The Pfaeffle Journal (Diane) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019

3.5 last 4 chapters were unnecessary otherwise an interesting read.

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Mar 23, 2019 Wei Li rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: history

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 ou ...more

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Jul 06, 2019 Robbo rated it liked it · review of another edition

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.

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Mar 15, 2020 Thomas Isern rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: agriculture

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 ...more

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Aug 18, 2018 Andrew rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

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 ...more

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Oct 09, 2017 Keen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

“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
“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.
...more

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Nov 03, 2018 Keri rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

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. ...more

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Nov 07, 2019 Alyxandra Cox rated it it was ok · review of another edition

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. ...more

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Jun 22, 2018 Jonathan Monnet rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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.

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May 14, 2019 Bret James Stewart rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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 i ...more

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Jan 26, 2020 Mediaman rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: health, food, slavery

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 ...more

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Jan 04, 2018 Andrienne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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. ...more

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Feb 03, 2018 Holly Senecal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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. ...more

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Aug 18, 2018 Mehrsa rated it liked it · review of another edition

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. ...more

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Jul 26, 2018 Laura rated it liked it · review of another edition

Interesting, but repetitive.

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Dec 28, 2019 Descendant of Reader rated it really liked it · review of another edition

With 'slavery' mentioned in the title, it is easy to assume that 'The World Corrupted' would predominantly rest its arguments on the 16th - 19th c. trans-Atlantic slave trade when arguing the historical significance of sugar. However, James Walvin is far more thorough in arguing the role of sugar in human economics and the formation of modern dietary habits and the current unprecedented health epidemics.

Reaching back into ancient history, Walvin explores the way in which humans have sought to sa With 'slavery' mentioned in the title, it is easy to assume that 'The World Corrupted' would predominantly rest its arguments on the 16th - 19th c. trans-Atlantic slave trade when arguing the historical significance of sugar. However, James Walvin is far more thorough in arguing the role of sugar in human economics and the formation of modern dietary habits and the current unprecedented health epidemics.

Reaching back into ancient history, Walvin explores the way in which humans have sought to satisfy a biological desire for sweetness in consumption of fruits and honey, long before the discovery and widespread cultivation of cane and beet sugar. Endorsed by religious texts and early medical thinkers, Walvin also identifies a tendency for ancient civilisations to cultivate and value sweet foods and view them as synonymous with good health and prosperity. The growing consumption of sweet foods by the most wealthy in society is typified in Walvin's outlandish descriptions of medieval and early modern banqueting halls competing to display terrific and elaborate sculptures from honeyed and sugared foods, and even just pure sugar. He cites historical sources which record Kings and Queens requesting replica buildings or full scale models of people and animals crafted from sugar.

This, of course, drives Walvin to explore the way in which sugar was made accessible to the masses, and the extent Europeans went to in order to satisfy their gluttony and increase their profits through the brutality of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Walvin brilliantly argues the way in which human addiction to one crop, more so than any other, led to unparalleled genocide of American natives and mass-uprooting of millions of Africans to endure lives of violence and barbarity which transformed the history, culture, racial and ethnic identity of a whole continent. But Walvin doesn't stop there; he knits together the relationship between South America's slave-produced sugar and the growing global popularity for tea and coffee, and the byproduct of rum as a useful tool for intoxicating and oppressing natives in North America.

Even beyond horrors of slavery as many might understand it, Walvin also reveals the cruelty of indentured servitude and the mass-movement of Indian workers to South Africa in the pursuit of cheap cane sugar after Abolition. It is mind-blowing just how powerfully Walvin is able to argue the significance of sugar as a major driver behind global imperialism.

Walvin goes on to discuss the growth of lobby groups and 'sugar barons' who rose from the ashes of Abolition in search of cheaper alternatives to cane sugar in the form of beet sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and chemical sweeteners. Finally, Walvin visits the role of powerful 21st century corporations, the stripping away food regulation, and the inevitable toll of our addiction to sugar in riddling us with diabetes, obesity, heart disease, dementia, Altzheimer's and cancers. A brilliant and fascinating, but bleak read. ...more

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Dec 12, 2019 Giulia Held rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book, unsurprisingly, is about the history of sugar. Known to us as such a simple commodity, yet with such a deep and complex history. I read this book so avidly, I simply couldn’t get enough! This book gives a detailed analysis of the history and expansion of sugar from early Islamic culture to our current obesity epidemic. Walvin also speaks about how the slave trade revolutionised what we think of sugar; the mere presence of a sugar bowl was a sign of immense wealth. The slave trade conv This book, unsurprisingly, is about the history of sugar. Known to us as such a simple commodity, yet with such a deep and complex history. I read this book so avidly, I simply couldn’t get enough! This book gives a detailed analysis of the history and expansion of sugar from early Islamic culture to our current obesity epidemic. Walvin also speaks about how the slave trade revolutionised what we think of sugar; the mere presence of a sugar bowl was a sign of immense wealth. The slave trade converted this luxury into a necessity, and this is when it started to rot the teeth of the masses and lead us to this global obesity epidemic we are currently experiencing today.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book from cover to cover! In this first section Walvin talks about how the spread of sugar/honey began in the Middle East and the Islamic empire. The love for honey in Islamic culture originated from the Prophet Mohammed’s adoration of sweetness and honey due to its association to the afterlife with God. Honey was a vital part of their culture, therefore, when the Islamic empire began to spread, so did honey. This honey obsession grew into the sugar obsession we know now but was exclusive only to the wealthiest of people and royalty. This is evident if you look at paintings of the royal families across Europe, they are usually not smiling and in the rare paintings that they are they have very few teeth. I could not believe what I was reading! Following from this, as the slave trade grew and sugar became ever more popular, the demand for sugar was sky high meaning that the plantations would increasingly grew sugar to meet this demand. Once the demand began to be met, sugar became a necessity in all households across Britain and France especially. Never could anyone have imagined that sugar could have had such a strong impact globally. The transformation of sugar’s status meant that it was easy to get a hold of in Britain and France, which eventually led us to where we are now: global obesity epidemic and poor dental hygiene.
Overall, I would highly recommend this book to everyone! I would especially recommend this to anyone interested in history, health and nutrition, or simply how sugar has managed to infiltrate almost every food in our supermarkets. Sugar is so prevalent nowadays that it is almost impossible avoiding it. Even in dietetic foods we can find sugar in all sorts of disguises, convincing us to buy it and subsequently creating an addiction. I truly found that this book opened a whole new set of doors to me, leading me to question why this simple commodity was able to conquer our palettes so easily. If you do go ahead and read this book please let me know what you think of it! I would love to hear what you guys think of it!
...more

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Dec 05, 2017 Sarah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Amazing, eye-opening and extremely informative ! The author explains how the growth of slavery went hand in hand with the growth of sugar and big businesses, as well as the destruction of natural forests and habitats to clear the land to cultivate the sugar. Then he talks about the growth of sugar in the US and the spread of fast food chains and soft drinks and how the “Big Food” had so much power that they were able to keep growing despite the proven negative effects of sugar. Manipulative and Amazing, eye-opening and extremely informative ! The author explains how the growth of slavery went hand in hand with the growth of sugar and big businesses, as well as the destruction of natural forests and habitats to clear the land to cultivate the sugar. Then he talks about the growth of sugar in the US and the spread of fast food chains and soft drinks and how the “Big Food” had so much power that they were able to keep growing despite the proven negative effects of sugar. Manipulative and deceptive marketing and the support of governments and sponsored scientists to hide the truth about the harms of sugar have played a role in convincing the poor as well as children to eat foods that they do not have the financial resources for and that provide them with zero nutritional value.

The author tackles the common argument that has been used against the opponents of sugar and the agri-industry’s endemic flaws in the way it produces food: that it is people’s choice whether they eat this food or not. He argues that “the decision about diet isn’t merely a simple matter of individual choice. People are steered towards decisions about consumption by powerful - in some respects irresistible - commercial forces [which] cleverly blend the appropriate strands of science (food, nutritional and medical research) with the findings of market research and advertising”. The author sheds light on some of the deceiving strategies that have been used by sugar manufacturers and advertisers to counteract the studies that have proven the ill effects of their products. These include hiring dentists, doctors, and researchers to enforce their products and present them in a positive light. Big businesses should not be absolved of their duty to provide the right information about the amount of sugar in their food to the public, to minimise their advertising to children, and to manufacture healthier food.

Overall, this book is a key example of the greed that plagues our world today. European colonies and US hegemony and later the sugar industry and conglomerates, and the food industry in general, have benefited greatly from harming the environment, whole societies (especially Native Americans and African slaves) and people’s health. None of that mattered to them, though, as long as they were making money. ...more

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Aug 07, 2018 Chrissi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, food-lit, nonfiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. "Sugar is the new tobacco."
Wow.
When you think about all the work that's been done to limit tobacco use, including pictures of damaged lungs, rotted teeth, birth defects, and what have you, should sugar be treated the same way?

Walvin explores the earliest use of honey and fruit as sweeteners, to the availability of cane sugar in the Western European countries (particularly France and Britain), to the lower prices of sugar contributing to sugar being available to the poorer classes, to the moder "Sugar is the new tobacco."
Wow.
When you think about all the work that's been done to limit tobacco use, including pictures of damaged lungs, rotted teeth, birth defects, and what have you, should sugar be treated the same way?

Walvin explores the earliest use of honey and fruit as sweeteners, to the availability of cane sugar in the Western European countries (particularly France and Britain), to the lower prices of sugar contributing to sugar being available to the poorer classes, to the modern day use of artificial sweeteners and corn syrup to oversugar our products.

Are we to blame for the obesity and overweight society we live in today?

Walvin looks at advertising and smokescreening about sugar, especially in the way of research since the 1960s. Some of the work he presents as compelling, that sugar really is a "white devil" of promoting human and environmental degradation throughout history just so we can satisfy our love of sweetness. At what cost? Well, human cost of slavery, as sugar plantations constituted a large part of African slave labour and more modern indentured or migrant labour (often paid in very low wages and represented by poor working conditions). Also, the environmental cost is high, especially where jungles, forests, and natural landscapes have been slashed and burned to make way for the sugar cane crop. The big sugar companies are doing all they can to brush aside the evidence and keep focusing on "personal choice". We can choose, can't we? Or are we at the mercy of the food companies?

King Sugar. Will a tax on sugary food and drink work? In some countries like Mexico, Norway, and Finland, it seems like it has. Chicago instituted this tax last year, but I haven't heard much of how it's worked/not worked. While the history sections seemed rather repetitive at times (I nearly stopped reading halfway through as I felt deja vu from earlier chapters), I powered through to the end and found the final chapters quite illuminating about modern day eating habits and how advertising, supermarkets, and the desire for domestic ease contributed to the rise in sugar-consumption.

I recommend it if you're interested in food history and modern issues. ...more

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Aug 15, 2019 Sam rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: food, history, non-fiction, economics, bodywork, politics

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 pro 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. ...more

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Mar 24, 2019 Bec rated it liked it · review of another edition

I would recommend this book for high schoolers or people wanting an entry to the topic of sugar & slavery, or just slavery in general, it does provide some useful facts. I didn't actually get to the obesity portion of the book. The problem for me is that the book didn't go deep enough into its subject material, a whole chapter was devoted to the destruction of the native peoples & environment of the Caribbean islands but no mention was made of any specific animal. Don't sloths live in Jamaica? I ...more

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Jul 23, 2018 Richard rated it liked it · review of another edition

I liked the history part of this book a lot. Good information. Many pages devoted to the slavery aspect and other economic issues. We are reminded that other countries besides the US were tied to a slave-driven economy.

Disappointments in this section: I wish Walvin had spent more than parts of 4 pages on HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) and more space overall on artificial sweetners. But a solid 4 stars for the history chapters.

I felt Walvin spent too much time on the health-related chapters. I g ...more

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Feb 21, 2020 Joe Stack rated it liked it · review of another edition

Desserts. An additive and an addiction. Obesity. Slavery. Environmental destruction. Mass migration (forced). Dental trouble. This is a thoughtful history of nutrition and the the politics and the transformation of sugar from being a luxury for the rich to a product that is an addiction for the masses fueling the globalization of obesity. While I found some repetition and statistics that I think may have been more useful if presented in a table format, the author’s examination of the influence o ...more

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Feb 12, 2020 Rachel Crofts rated it liked it · review of another edition

Sugar (...) tells the history of Sugar in the (mainly) Western world from it's origins to the early years of the 21st Century, tracking its cost in human and economic terms as it becomes the ubiquitous commodity that sugar is today.

Walvin's tale is well structured, and contains plenty of fascinating facts. You sense that here is an academic with a real passion for his subject; however that subject may well have been the history of sugar as it pertains to the Caribbean and the slave trade, rathe ...more

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May 02, 2019 Serendipity rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-popsugar

A solid readable micro history that traced the rise and spread of the sugar industry, plus the possible beginning of its decline. I was well aware of its human toll- slavery being the worst, but also dental decay, migrant workers and obesity. But this book opened my eyes to the environmental toll as large sugar plantations replaced natural habitats in the Caribbean and later degraded and threatened the Everglades ecosystem in Florida. The book highlighted the connection between sugar and politic ...more

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Mar 21, 2020 Dan Castrigano rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Pretty bad in the first 2/3, but the last 1/3 was interesting to read. The last third was about obesity, soft drinks, and health care systems. Walvin, whose body of work mostly covers transatlantic slavery, expands the first part of the book unnecessarily. It reads like an 8th grader who is practicing the organization of their essay - like the "concluding paragraph" of each chapter doesn't really offer any analysis or insight - it's just a straightforward summary with similar-sounding sentences ...more

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About James Walvin

James Walvin

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James 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 ...more