A Dark History Of Sugar

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A Tall History of Sugar

Author : Curdella Forbes
Publisher : Akashic Books
ISBN 13 : 1617757810
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (177 download)

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Book Synopsis A Tall History of Sugar by : Curdella Forbes

Download or read book A Tall History of Sugar written by Curdella Forbes and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A haunting, epic Caribbean love story, reminiscent of García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. WINNER of the 2020 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction! "A Tall History of Sugar is a gift for grown-up fans of fairy tales and those who love fiction that metes out hard and surprising truths. Forbes's writing combines the gale-force imagination of Margaret Atwood with the lyrical pointillism of Toni Morrison." --New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice "A mesmerizing love story that takes place over 50 years in Jamaica." --Tayari Jones in O, the Oprah Magazine A Tall History of Sugar has been longlisted for the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (Fiction shortlist)! "Curdella Forbes's A Tall History of Sugar is the most recent in an impressive new wave of novels by Jamaican writers--from Marlon James's Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings to Kei Miller's Augustown, Marcia Douglas's The Marvelous Equations of the Dread, and Nicole Dennis-Benn's Patsy, among others. Forbes provides an eclectic, feverish vision of Jamaican 'history' from the 1950s to the present glimpsed through the experiences of an abandoned mystic-child named Moshe, whose translucent skin and mismatched eyes defy racial category. Who he is and who he becomes--like the country itself--is a riddle that unfolds in episodic bursts and linguistic flourishes." --Vanity Fair, one of the Best Books of 2019 "An epic tale of two soulmates: Moshe Fisher, born with mismatched eyes and pale skin that bruises easily, and Arrienne Christie, 'her skin even at birth the color of the wettest molasses, with a purple tinge under the surface.' Arrienne is his protector at school--and later his lover--but how they eventually wind up together is part of this unconventionally crafted story that spans decades, from the years before Jamaica's independence to the 2010s. Forbes' sentences are the stars here; it's a book that rewards slow, careful reading." --BuzzFeed, included in BuzzFeed's Fall 2019 Preview A Tall History of Sugar tells the story of Moshe Fisher, a man who was "born without skin," so that no one is able to tell what race he belongs to; and Arrienne Christie, his quixotic soul mate who makes it her duty in life to protect Moshe from the social and emotional consequences of his strange appearance. The narrative begins with Moshe's birth in the late 1950s, four years before Jamaica's independence from colonial rule, and ends in the era of what Forbes calls "the fall of empire," the era of Brexit and Donald Trump. The historical trajectory layers but never overwhelms the scintillating love story as the pair fight to establish their own view of loving, against the moral force of the colonial "plantation" and its legacies that continue to affect their lives and the lives of those around them. Written in lyrical, luminous prose that spans the range of Jamaican Englishes, this remarkable story follows the couple's mysterious love affair from childhood to adulthood, from the haunted environs of rural Jamaica to the city of Kingston, and then to England--another haunted locale in Forbes's rendition. Following on the footsteps of Marlon James's debut novel, John Crow's Devil, which Akashic Books published in 2005, we are delighted to introduce another lion of Jamaican literature with the publication of A Tall History of Sugar.

Sugar Changed the World

Author : Marc Aronson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781536406962
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (69 download)

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Book Synopsis Sugar Changed the World by : Marc Aronson

Download or read book Sugar Changed the World written by Marc Aronson and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the panoramic story of the sweet substance and its important role in shaping world history.

Sugar in the Blood

Author : Andrea Stuart
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 030796115X
Total Pages : 394 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (79 download)

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Book Synopsis Sugar in the Blood by : Andrea Stuart

Download or read book Sugar in the Blood written by Andrea Stuart and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1630s, lured by the promise of the New World, Andrea Stuart’s earliest known maternal ancestor, George Ashby, set sail from England to settle in Barbados. He fell into the life of a sugar plantation owner by mere chance, but by the time he harvested his first crop, a revolution was fully under way: the farming of sugar cane, and the swiftly increasing demands for sugar worldwide, would not only lift George Ashby from abject poverty and shape the lives of his descendants, but it would also bind together ambitious white entrepreneurs and enslaved black workers in a strangling embrace. Stuart uses her own family story—from the seventeenth century through the present—as the pivot for this epic tale of migration, settlement, survival, slavery and the making of the Americas. As it grew, the sugar trade enriched Europe as never before, financing the Industrial Revolution and fuelling the Enlightenment. And, as well, it became the basis of many economies in South America, played an important part in the evolution of the United States as a world power and transformed the Caribbean into an archipelago of riches. But this sweet and hugely profitable trade—“white gold,” as it was known—had profoundly less palatable consequences in its precipitation of the enslavement of Africans to work the fields on the islands and, ultimately, throughout the American continents. Interspersing the tectonic shifts of colonial history with her family’s experience, Stuart explores the interconnected themes of settlement, sugar and slavery with extraordinary subtlety and sensitivity. In examining how these forces shaped her own family—its genealogy, intimate relationships, circumstances of birth, varying hues of skin—she illuminates how her family, among millions of others like it, in turn transformed the society in which they lived, and how that interchange continues to this day. Shifting between personal and global history, Stuart gives us a deepened understanding of the connections between continents, between black and white, between men and women, between the free and the enslaved. It is a story brought to life with riveting and unparalleled immediacy, a story of fundamental importance to the making of our world.

Sugar

Author : Elizabeth Abbott
Publisher : Abrams
ISBN 13 : 1590207726
Total Pages : 415 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Sugar by : Elizabeth Abbott

Download or read book Sugar written by Elizabeth Abbott and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2011-09-27 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dramatic history of an ingredient that changed the world “offers up a number of fascinating stories” (The New York Times Book Review). Sugar explores the history behind the sweetness, revealing, among other stories, how powerful American interests deposed Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawaii; how Hitler tried to ensure a steady supply of beet sugar when enemies threatened to cut off Germany’s supply of overseas cane sugar; and how South Africa established a domestic ethanol industry in the wake of anti-apartheid sugar embargos. The book follows the role of sugar in world events and in individual lives up to the present day, showing how it made eating on the run socially acceptable and played an integral role in today’s fast food culture and obesity epidemic. Impressively researched and commandingly written, Sugar will forever change perceptions of this tempting treat. “A highly readable and comprehensive study of a remarkable product.” —The Independent “Epic in ambition and briskly written.” —The Wall Street Journal “Readers will never again be able to casually sweeten tea or eat sweets without considering the long and fascinating history of sugar.” —Booklist

Sugar

Author : James Walvin
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1681777207
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (817 download)

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Book Synopsis Sugar by : James Walvin

Download or read book Sugar written by James Walvin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. 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. 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.

The Case Against Sugar

Author : Gary Taubes
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0451493990
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis The Case Against Sugar by : Gary Taubes

Download or read book The Case Against Sugar written by Gary Taubes and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2016-12-27 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the best-selling author of Why We Get Fat, a groundbreaking, eye-opening exposé that makes the convincing case that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium: backed by powerful lobbies, entrenched in our lives, and making us very sick. Among Americans, diabetes is more prevalent today than ever; obesity is at epidemic proportions; nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And sugar is at the root of these, and other, critical society-wide, health-related problems. With his signature command of both science and straight talk, Gary Taubes delves into Americans' history with sugar: its uses as a preservative, as an additive in cigarettes, the contemporary overuse of high-fructose corn syrup. He explains what research has shown about our addiction to sweets. He clarifies the arguments against sugar, corrects misconceptions about the relationship between sugar and weight loss; and provides the perspective necessary to make informed decisions about sugar as individuals and as a society.

A Dark History of Sugar

Author : Neil Buttery
Publisher : Pen and Sword History
ISBN 13 : 1526783665
Total Pages : 295 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis A Dark History of Sugar by : Neil Buttery

Download or read book A Dark History of Sugar written by Neil Buttery and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2022-06-16 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 fuelled on sugar, as was the United States, the greatest superpower on the planet – and they all relied upon slave labour to catalyse 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 Guinean 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.

The Biography of Sugar

Author : Rachel Eagen
Publisher : Crabtree Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 9780778724858
Total Pages : 36 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis The Biography of Sugar by : Rachel Eagen

Download or read book The Biography of Sugar written by Rachel Eagen and published by Crabtree Publishing Company. This book was released on 2006 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains the history of sugar, where it's grown, how it's harvested, and its many uses then and now.

Sweetness and Power

Author : Sidney W. Mintz
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101666641
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Sweetness and Power by : Sidney W. Mintz

Download or read book Sweetness and Power written by Sidney W. Mintz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1986-08-05 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating persuasive history of how sugar has shaped the world, from European colonies to our modern diets In this eye-opening study, Sidney Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life, and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar, and reveals how closely interwoven are sugar's origins as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies with is use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new industrial proletariat. Finally, he considers how sugar has altered work patterns, eating habits, and our diet in modern times. "Like sugar, Mintz is persuasive, and his detailed history is a real treat." -San Francisco Chronicle

Human Dark with Sugar

Author : Brenda Shaughnessy
Publisher : Copper Canyon Press
ISBN 13 : 1619320118
Total Pages : 90 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (193 download)

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Book Synopsis Human Dark with Sugar by : Brenda Shaughnessy

Download or read book Human Dark with Sugar written by Brenda Shaughnessy and published by Copper Canyon Press. This book was released on 2008-04-01 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Brenda Shaughnessy’s poems bristle with imperatives: ‘confuse me, spoon-feed me, stop the madness, decide.’ There are more direct orders in her first few pages than in six weeks of boot camp...Only Shaughnessy’s kidding. Or she is and she isn’t. If you just want to boss people around, you’re a control freak, but if you can joke about it, then your bossiness is leavened by a yeast that’s all too infrequent in contemporary poetry, that of humor.”—New York Times “Shaughnessy’s voice is smart, sexy, self-aware, hip . . . consistently wry, and ever savvy.”—Harvard Review “Brenda Shaughnessy . . . writes like the love-child of Mina Loy and Frank O’Hara.”—Exquisite Corpse "In its worried acceptance of contradiction, its absolute refusal of sentimentality and its acute awareness of time's 'scarce infinity,' this is a brilliant, beautiful and essential continuation of the metaphysical verse tradition." —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Human Dark with Sugar is both wonderfully inventive (studded with the strangenesses of ‘snownovas’ and ‘flukeprints’) and emotionally precise. Her ‘I’ is madly multidexterous—urgent, comic, mischievous—and the result is a new topography of the debates between heart and head.”—Matthea Harvey, a judge for the Laughlin Award "Seriously playful, sexy, sharp-edged, and absolutely commanding throughout....Here you'll meet an 'I' boldly ready to take on the world and just itching to give 'You' some smart directives. So listen up."—Library Journal In her second book, winner of the prestigious James Laughlin Award, Brenda Shaughnessy taps into themes that have inspired era after era of poets. Love. Sex. Pain. The heavens. The loss of time. The weird miracle of perception. Part confessional, part New York School, and part just plain lover of the English language, Shaughnessy distills the big questions into sharp rhythms and alluring lyrics. “You’re a tool, moon. / Now, noon. There’s a hero.” Master of diverse dictions, she dwells here on quirky words, mouthfuls of consonance and assonance—anodyne, astrolabe, alizarin—then catches her readers up short with a string of powerful monosyllables. “I’ll take / a year of that. Just give it back to me.” In addition to its verbal play, Human Dark With Sugar demonstrates the poet’s ease in a variety of genres, from “Three Sorries” (in which the speaker concludes, “I’m not sorry. Not sorry at all”), to a sequence of prose poems on a lover’s body, to the discussion of a disturbing dream. In this caffeine jolt of a book, Shaughnessy confirms her status as a poet of intoxicating lines, pointed, poignant comments on love, and compelling abstract images —not the least of which is human dark with sugar. Brenda Shaughnessy was raised in California and is an MFA graduate of Columbia University. She is the poetry editor for Tin House and has taught at several colleges, including Eugene Lang College and Princeton University. She lives in Brooklyn.

Burning Sugar

Author : Cicely Belle Blain
Publisher : arsenal pulp press
ISBN 13 : 1551528266
Total Pages : 113 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (515 download)

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Book Synopsis Burning Sugar by : Cicely Belle Blain

Download or read book Burning Sugar written by Cicely Belle Blain and published by arsenal pulp press. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this incendiary debut collection, activist and poet Cicely Belle Blain intimately revisits familiar spaces in geography, in the arts, and in personal history to expose the legacy of colonization and its impact on Black bodies. They use poetry to illuminate their activist work: exposing racism, especially anti-Blackness, and helping people see the connections between history and systemic oppression that show up in every human interaction, space, and community. Their poems demonstrate how the world is both beautiful and cruel, a truth that inspires overwhelming anger and awe -- all of which spills out onto the page to tell the story of a challenging, complex, nuanced, and joyful life. In Burning Sugar, verse and epistolary, racism and resilience, pain and precarity are flawlessly sewn together by the mighty hands of a Black, queer femme. This book is the second title to be published under the VS. Books imprint, a series curated and edited by writer-musician Vivek Shraya, featuring work by new and emerging Indigenous or Black writers, or writers of color. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A Simple book with few images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Author : Roald Dahl
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101652950
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar by : Roald Dahl

Download or read book The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar written by Roald Dahl and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2000-05-22 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seven superb short stories from the bestselling author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG! The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is coming soon to Netflix! Meet the boy who can talk to animals and the man who can see with his eyes closed. And find out about the treasure buried deep underground. A clever mix of fact and fiction, this collection also includes how master storyteller Roald Dahl became a writer. With Roald Dahl, you can never be sure where reality ends and fantasy begins. "All the tales are entrancing inventions." —Publishers Weekly

Sugar Heritage and Tourism in Transition

Author : Lee Jolliffe
Publisher : Channel View Publications
ISBN 13 : 1845413865
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (454 download)

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Book Synopsis Sugar Heritage and Tourism in Transition by : Lee Jolliffe

Download or read book Sugar Heritage and Tourism in Transition written by Lee Jolliffe and published by Channel View Publications. This book was released on 2013 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the sugar and tourism relationship in the context of globalization by identifying destination transitions from sugar to tourism. It profiles the role of sugar in colonization, enslavement, decolonization and postcolonial tourism, offering examples of sugar heritage in tourism from Europe, the Caribbean, South America, Asia and North America.

A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat

Author : Emily Jenkins
Publisher : Schwartz & Wade
ISBN 13 : 0375987711
Total Pages : 45 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (759 download)

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Book Synopsis A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat by : Emily Jenkins

Download or read book A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat written by Emily Jenkins and published by Schwartz & Wade. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Best Illustrated Book From highly acclaimed author Jenkins and Caldecott Medal–winning illustrator Blackall comes a fascinating picture book in which four families, in four different cities, over four centuries, make the same delicious dessert: blackberry fool. This richly detailed book ingeniously shows how food, technology, and even families have changed throughout American history. In 1710, a girl and her mother in Lyme, England, prepare a blackberry fool, picking wild blackberries and beating cream from their cow with a bundle of twigs. The same dessert is prepared by an enslaved girl and her mother in 1810 in Charleston, South Carolina; by a mother and daughter in 1910 in Boston; and finally by a boy and his father in present-day San Diego. Kids and parents alike will delight in discovering the differences in daily life over the course of four centuries. Includes a recipe for blackberry fool and notes from the author and illustrator about their research.

Sugar Money

Author : Jane Harris
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1628728914
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (287 download)

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Book Synopsis Sugar Money by : Jane Harris

Download or read book Sugar Money written by Jane Harris and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in 1765 on the Caribbean islands of Grenada and Martinique, Sugar Money opens as two enslaved brothers - Emile and Lucien - are sent on an impossible mission forced upon them by their masters, a band of mendicant French monks. The monks run hospitals in the islands and fund their ventures through farming cane sugar and distilling rum. Seven years earlier - after a series of scandals - they were ousted from Grenada by the French authorities, and had to leave their slaves behind. Despite the fact that Grenada is now under British rule, and effectively enemy territory, the monks devise an absurdly ambitious plan: they send Emile and Lucien to the island to convince the monks’ former slaves to flee British brutality and escape with them. Based on a historical rebellion, award-winning writer Jane Harris peoples her daring novel with unforgettable characters. Recounted by Lucien, the younger brother, this story of courage, disaster, and love, is a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit under the crush of unspeakable cruelty.

The Cost of Sugar

Author : Cynthia McLeod
Publisher : HopeRoad
ISBN 13 : 1908446013
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cost of Sugar by : Cynthia McLeod

Download or read book The Cost of Sugar written by Cynthia McLeod and published by HopeRoad. This book was released on 2011-01-07 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cost of Sugar is an intriguing history of those rabid times in Dutch Surinam between 1765-1779 when sugar was king.Told through the eyes of two Jewish step sisters, Eliza and Sarith, descendants of the settlers of 'New Jerusalem of the River' know today as Jodensvanne. The Cost of Sugar is a frank expose of the tragic toll on the lives of colonists and slaves alike.

A Dark History of Chocolate

Author : Emma Kay
Publisher : Pen and Sword History
ISBN 13 : 1526768313
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis A Dark History of Chocolate by : Emma Kay

Download or read book A Dark History of Chocolate written by Emma Kay and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2021-11-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Dark History of Chocolate looks at our long relationship with this ancient ‘food of the Gods’. The book examines the impact of the cocoa bean trade on the economies of Britain and the rest of Europe, as well as its influence on health, cultural and social trends over the centuries. Renowned food historian Emma Kay takes a look behind the façade of chocolate – first as a hot drink and then as a sweet – delving into the murky and mysterious aspects of its phenomenal global growth, from a much-prized hot beverage in pre-Colombian Central America to becoming an integral part of the cultural fabric of modern life. From the seductive corridors of Versailles, serial killers, witchcraft, medicine and war to its manufacturers, the street sellers, criminal gangs, explorers and the arts, chocolate has played a significant role in some of the world’s deadliest and gruesome histories. If you thought chocolate was all Easter bunnies, romance and gratuity, then you only know half the story. This most ancient of foods has a heritage rooted in exploitation, temptation and mystery. With the power to be both life-giving and ruinous.