   | Full Text Reviews: School Library Journal - 10/01/2010 Gr 8 Up—This meticulously researched, brutally honest, compelling book offers readers a different way to look at many events over the past 200 years or so. The title says it all. From the slave trade through abolition; from revolutions (American, French, and Haitian) to the Louisiana Purchase; from the decline of honey to the rise of saccharine, these events and many more are directly traced to the cultivation and production of sugar cane around the world. With a focus on slavery, Aronson and Budhos demonstrate how this one crop, with its unique harvesting needs, helped to bring about a particularly brutal incarnation of slavery. What makes this such a captivating read is that the book has a jigsaw-puzzle feel as the authors connect seemingly disparate threads and bring readers to the larger picture by highlighting the smaller details hidden within. Primary-source materials such as photographs, interview excerpts, and maps are included throughout, making this an indispensable part of any history collection. The chapter entitled "How We Researched and Wrote This Book" will be of particular interest to teachers and librarians.—Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA - Copyright 2010 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Booklist - 10/15/2010 As the title suggests, this stirring, highly detailed history of the sugar trade reaches across time and around the globe. Framed by the authors’ family connections to the subject, the chapters move from New Guinea, where humans are believed to have first cultivated sugar cane 10,000 years ago, to its spread across the ancient world. With a chapter titled “Hell,” the authors delve into brutal accounts of the rise of sugar plantations in the Caribbean and Hawaii. In the U.S., where the sugar story centered on Louisiana, even supposedly free states, such as New York, made fortunes in transporting and selling sugar grown by slaves. The book’s scope is ambitious, but the clear, informal prose, along with maps and archival illustrations, makes the horrific connections with dramatic immediacy. A closing chapter about how Gandhi’s struggle for human rights affected the sugar trade brings in more of the authors’ stories. A teacher’s guide is available, and classroom discussion is sure to spark intense interest and further research, starting with the fully documented sources at the back. - Copyright 2010 Booklist. Bulletin for the Center... - 11/01/2010 Let’s be clear: this is not a quick-pick history of junk food, even though readers will probably never look at a Snickers bar or Jolly Rancher the same way again. This is a poignant, ultimately hopeful essay that clearly chronicles the human pursuit of sugar to satisfy our collective sweet tooth. The book describes this history in terms of ages, beginning with the Age of Honey, built on local growth and consumption of comestibles; through the Age of Sugar and its slave-supported, “factory” plantation method of production; and into a period of science and freedom, when enslaved workers claimed their human rights and production of sweeteners shifted from the field to the lab. Discussion is divided into four parts, covering the ages defined by the authors and then drawing history into current events with a closing look at modern sugar workers. As with other Aronson titles, the reward is commensurate with the challenge, and readers who follow the authors’ provocative yet accessible narration will gain fresh insight not only into sugar but also into the worldwide matrix in which slavery flourished. Black-and-white photographs, timelines, a web guide to color images, a research essay, annotated notes, a bibliography, and an index are appended. Older readers intrigued by food as a world history focus might also want to move on to Mark Kurlansky’s adult works Cod or Salt. EB - Copyright 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Loading...
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