Sugar Changed The World
Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science
Sugar Changed The World
Marina Budhos, Marc Aronson
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, index.

Book Details

Genre: 

  • Historical Nonfiction

Age Level: 

  • 12 and up
Profile Picture

Sugar Changed the World, by Marc Aronson, is a tale full of adventure, history, human cruelty, and of course- sugar! Marc Aronson tells you his family history- while at the same time telling you how sugar changed everything. Through these true events and stories, you see how slavery was a BIG part of sugar. You start to wonder if that wonderful spice was worth all of the suffering. Throughout the story you learn all kinds of interesting details about sugar, but at the same time you learn a lot about humans in general.

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