A Dark History of Sugar delves into our evolutionary history to
explain why sugar is so loved, yet is the root cause of so many bad
things.
Europe's colonial past and Britain's Empire were founded and fueled on
sugar, as was the United States, the greatest superpower on the planet -
and they all relied upon slave labor to catalyze it.
A Dark History of Sugar focuses upon the role of the slave trade in
sugar production and looks beyond it to how the exploitation of the
workers didn't end with emancipation. It reveals the sickly truth behind
the detrimental impact of sugar's meteoric popularity on the environment
and our health. Advertising companies peddle their sugar-laden wares to
children with fun cartoon characters, but the reality is not so sweet.
A Dark History of Sugar delves into our long relationship with this
sweetest and most ancient of commodities. The book examines the impact
of the sugar trade on the economies of Britain and the rest of the
world, as well as its influence on health and cultural and social trends
over the centuries.
Renowned food historian Neil Buttery takes a look at some of the
lesser-known elements of the history of sugar, delving into the murky
and mysterious aspects of its phenomenal rise from the first cultivation
of the sugar cane plant in Papua New Guinea in 8,000 BCE to becoming an
integral part of the cultural fabric of life in Britain and the rest of
the West - at whatever cost. The dark history of sugar is one of
exploitation: of slaves and workers, of the environment and of the
consumer. Wars have been fought over it and it is responsible for what
is potentially to be the planet's greatest health crisis.
And yet we cannot get enough of it, for sugar and sweetness has cast its
spell over us all; it is comfort and we reminisce fondly about the
sweets, cakes, puddings and fizzy drinks of our childhoods with
dewy-eyed nostalgia. To be sweet means to be good, to be innocent; in
this book Neil Buttery argues that sugar is nothing of the sort. Indeed,
it is guilty of some of the worst crimes against humanity and the
planet.
