Sugar

The World Corrupted: From Slavery to Obesity

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Pub Date 03 Apr 2018 | Archive Date 31 Mar 2018

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Description

How did a simple commodity, once the prized monopoly of kings and princes, become an essential ingredient in the lives of millions, before mutating yet again into the cause of a global health epidemic? Prior to 1600, sugar was a costly luxury, the domain of the rich. But with the rise of the sugar colonies in the New World over the following century, sugar became cheap, ubiquitous and an everyday necessity. Less than fifty years ago, few people suggested that sugar posed a global health problem.  And yet today, sugar is regularly denounced as a dangerous addiction, on a par with tobacco. While sugar consumption remains higher than ever—in some countries as high as 100lbs per head per year—some advertisements even proudly proclaim that their product contains no sugar. How did sugar grow from prize to pariah? Acclaimed historian James Walvin looks at the history of our collective sweet tooth, beginning with the sugar grown by enslaved people who had been uprooted and shipped vast distances to undertake the grueling labor on plantations.  The combination of sugar and slavery would transform the tastes of the Western world. Masterfully insightful and probing, James Walvin reveals the relationship between society and sweetness over the past two centuries—and how it explains our conflicted relationship with sugar today.  

How did a simple commodity, once the prized monopoly of kings and princes, become an essential ingredient in the lives of millions, before mutating yet again into the cause of a global health...


Advance Praise

“Shocking and revelatory. No other product has so changed the world, and no other book reveals the scale of its impact.” - David Olusoga, author of The Kaiser’s Holocaust and host of the BBC's "Civilization"

“Shocking and revelatory. No other product has so changed the world, and no other book reveals the scale of its impact.” - David Olusoga, author of The Kaiser’s Holocaust and host of the BBC's...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781681776774
PRICE $27.95 (USD)
PAGES 352

Average rating from 6 members


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