When this award-winning husband-and-wife team discovered that they each
had sugar in their family history, they were inspired to trace the
globe-spanning story of the sweet substance and to seek out the voices
of those who led bitter sugar lives. The trail ran like a bright band
from religious ceremonies in India to Europe’s Middle Ages, then on to
Columbus, who brought the first cane cuttings to the Americas. Sugar was
the substance that drove the bloody slave trade and caused the loss of
countless lives but it also planted the seeds of revolution that led to
freedom in the American colonies, Haiti, and France. With songs, oral
histories, maps, and over 80 archival illustrations, here is the story
of how one product allows us to see the grand currents of world history
in new ways. Time line, source notes, bibliography, and index included.
