Sugar - The world corrupted, from slavery to obesity (Walvin James)(Paperback / softback)

An ''entertaining, informative and utterly depressing global history of an important commodity . . . By alerting readers to the ways that modernity''s very origins are entangled with a seemingly benign and delicious substance, How Sugar Corrupted the World raises fundamental questions about our world.''Sven Beckert, the Laird Bell professor of American history at Harvard University and the author of Empire of Cotton: A Global History, in the New York Times''A brilliant and thought-provoking history of sugar and its ironies''Bee Wilson, Wall Street Journal''Shocking and revelatory . . . no other product has so changed the world, and no other book reveals the scale of its impact.'' David Olusoga''This study could not be more timely.'' Laura Sandy, Lecturer in the History of Slavery, University of LiverpoolThe 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 burgeoning European domestic and colonial economies. For all its recent origins, today''s obesity epidemic - if that is what it is - did not emerge overnight, but instead evolved from a complexity of historical forces which stretch back centuries. We can only fully understand this modern problem, by coming t
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