Overview

Full Product Details

9780674279391

Table of Contents

Reviews

The world history of sugar and the world history of capitalism are tightly linked to one another. Ulbe Bosma, in this first truly global account of a most crucial commodity, takes us to the fields of Indian peasants, the counting-houses of Chinese merchants, the monopolizing efforts of New York capitalists, and the rebellions of enslaved sugar workers in Cuba to chart how something as mundane as sugar came to play a crucial role in the making of the world we inhabit today. Attentive to local specificities as much as to Earth-spanning connections, to culture and capital, power and poverty, this book is global history at its best. -- Sven Beckert, author of <i>Empire of Cotton</i> Sugar may play a unique role in the slow-motion tragedy that is the worldwide epidemic of obesity and diabetes. The World of Sugar is a remarkably researched, comprehensive, and indispensable book for everyone who wishes to understand how sugar and the sugar industry have shaped the world in which we live. -- Gary Taubes, author of <i>The Case Against Sugar</i> How is it that a chemical that has no nutritional value, that is inherently poisonous, that is responsible for morbidity and mortality, and that is breaking the healthcare budget of every developed and developing country, is the seminal thread running through human history for the last 3,000 years? The World of Sugar narrates the critical events that made sugar the dominant force in world politics from antiquity to our own era. In this magisterial history, Bosma offers a much-needed cautionary tale about how addiction leads to societal downfall. As we watch newer addictions destroy the climate and Earth's inhabitants, we would all do well to learn the hard lessons of sugar. -- Robert Lustig, author of <i>Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine</i> Sugar got the modern world moving in a way few other commodities did. Revealing the bitter downside of sweetness, Bosma gives us a spectacular narrative that deftly weaves in all of sugar's stories: labor and consumption, power and trade, science and technology. -- Jurgen Osterhammel, author of <i>The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century</i>

The world history of sugar and the world history of capitalism are tightly linked to one another. Ulbe Bosma, in this first truly global account of a most crucial commodity, takes us to the fields of Indian peasants, the counting houses of Chinese merchants, the monopolizing efforts of New York capitalists and the rebellions of enslaved sugar workers in Cuba to chart how something as mundane as sugar came to play a crucial role in the making of the world we inhabit today. Attentive to local specificities as much as earth-spanning connections, to culture and capital, power and poverty, this book is global history at its best. -- Sven Beckert, author of <i>Empire of Cotton</i>

Author Information

Ulbe Bosma is Senior Researcher at the International Institute of Social History and Professor of International Comparative Social History at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His books include The Making of a Periphery and The Sugar Plantation in India and Indonesia.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available