Sugar Changed the World

Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science is a non-fiction history book written for young adults that was first published in 2010. It is primarily about how the cultivation of sugar has impacted societies across the world socially, economically, and culturally. The book is written by historian Marc Aronson and novelist Marina Budhos. It was a finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award.

In the Prologue, husband and wife Aronson and Budhos discuss their personal relationships with the subject matter. Next, they give a brief overview of the time before sugar became widespread, when honey from beehives was the main sweetener humanity used. With the advent of sugar, much more changed than just the ingredients people used.

Part 1, “From Magic to Spice,” covers the origins of sugar in agriculture. Cane sugar was first documented in India, where it was first used in religious rituals. Knowledge of sugar and its properties spread to Jundi Shapur, a seventh-century university in modern-day Iran, where it became known as a medicine. Also in the 600s, as Islam spread across the Middle East and North Africa, the Muslim elites used sugar as a spice in elaborate dishes. In the 1100s, sugar was introduced to Christian Europe through trade between Italian and Muslim merchants. Sugar became sold in European fairs, but it remained a luxury that was only available through trade. With the Crusades, Europeans learned from the Middle East how to plant sugar cane and produce sugar. However, sugar remained difficult to make because it required a lot of work and wood to burn.

Part 2, “Hell,” discusses how the discovery of the Americas and the difficult process of growing and refining sugar encouraged the enslavement of Africans. This part details the labor-intensive process of making sugar in plantations, which millions of Africans were enslaved to work in. Aronson and Budhos describe the special songs and dances, like the bomba and the Maculelê, that slaves developed as a form of resistance. To crush more explicit forms of resistance, like escaping, plantation owners employed intimidating overseers. Meanwhile, sugar became in high demand in Europe, where it was used in baking and with tea. Aronson and Budhos argue that it transformed life in Europe. Not only did it change the European diet, but it also gave workers in England the energy needed to endure long, grueling shifts in the country’s growing factories.

In Part 3, “Freedom,” Aronson and Budhos explain that boycotting sugar and protesting sugar taxes became a tool for achieving American independence and protesting the enslavement of Africans. Further revolutionary movements challenging slavery and fighting for new ideas of liberty spread in France and modern-day Haiti. These revolutionary movements all pitted human rights against property rights. Still, sugar plantations persisted through the 19th century in places like Louisiana and Hawaii. The importation of slaves in Louisiana and the hiring of East Asian and Portuguese migrant laborers in Hawaii for sugar production changed the cultures of those regions. In Louisiana, the slave culture gave birth to jazz. Meanwhile, the diverse origins of sugar laborers made Hawaii a strongly multicultural state.

Part 4, “Back to Our Stories: New Workers, New Sugar,” picks up with the end of slavery. Without African slaves, international sugar companies in the 19th century started to rely on indentured workers from India. Indian workers and African ex-slaves tended to stay in the colonies, where sugar drove the local economies, changing their cultures. Also, indentured Indians began to push for greater worker and human rights. Meanwhile, in the Russian Empire, beet sugar was discovered. Much less difficult to produce, beet sugar helped prompt the Russian government to liberate the serfs. Aronson and Budhos argue that developments like beet sugar and the discovery of artificial sweeteners by 1879 helped bring about the end of the Age of Sugar. It finally came to an end with Mohandas Gandhi and his protest movement, Satyagraha, which succeeded in gaining rights for Indian sugar workers.