Suivre le sucre pour éclairer l'histoire du monde : tel est le stupé?ant voyage auquel nous invite James Walvin. Tout commence avec la colonisation des Caraïbes et des Amériques, puis avec l'essor des plantations. C'est la naissance d'un nouvel ordre, fondé sur la déportation de millions d'Africains réduits en esclavage. Après l'extermination des populations indigènes et la destruction des paysages, les premières usines polluantes sont implantées pour fabriquer du sucre et du rhum. Se met en place une organisation du travail implacable qui inspirera Henry Ford. Mais il fallait aussi que ce sucre, quasiment inconnu jusqu'au XVIIe siècle, soit consommé. D'abord réservé à la table des élites, il devient, avec la révolution industrielle, l'aliment de base de la classe ouvrière, pendant que le rhum fait des ravages parmi les populations les plus pauvres. Un bouleversement des habitudes alimentaires désastreux : caries, obésité et diabète se répandent ; la consommation de boissons et de céréales sucrées gagne toujours plus de terrain.
De Bordeaux à Bristol, des fortunes colossales se sont bâties sur le sucre et l'esclavage, marquant les débuts du capitalisme. Plus tard, des entreprises sans scrupule, dont Coca-Cola reste la plus emblématique, développeront leur pouvoir de ravager le monde en même temps que leur surface ?nancière. Et dicteront parfois la politique des grands États.
Presents an account of the Atlantic slave trade which helps us to understand the rise and fall of one of the most shameful chapters in British history.
A sobering reminder of the trade's cruelty and scope . . . but also, through resistance, rebellion and riots, the power of individual people to change the world against the odds.
An 'entertaining, informative and utterly depressing global history of an important commodity . . . By alerting readers to the ways that modernity's very origins are entangled with a seemingly benign and delicious substance, How Sugar Corrupted the World raises fundamental questions about our world.' Sven Beckert, the Laird Bell professor of American history at Harvard University and the author of Empire of Cotton: A Global History, in the New York Times 'A brilliant and thought-provoking history of sugar and its ironies' Bee Wilson, Wall Street Journal 'Shocking and revelatory . . . no other product has so changed the world, and no other book reveals the scale of its impact.' David Olusoga 'This study could not be more timely.' Laura Sandy, Lecturer in the History of Slavery, University of Liverpool The story of sugar, and of mankind's desire for sweetness in food and drink is a compelling, though confusing story. It is also an historical story. The story of mankind's love of sweetness - the need to consume honey, cane sugar, beet sugar and chemical sweeteners - has important historical origins. To take a simple example, two centuries ago, cane sugar was vital to the burgeoning European domestic and colonial economies. For all its recent origins, today's obesity epidemic - if that is what it is - did not emerge overnight, but instead evolved from a complexity of historical forces which stretch back centuries. We can only fully understand this modern problem, by coming to terms with its genesis and history: and we need to consider the historical relationship between society and sweetness over a long historical span. This book seeks to do just that: to tell the story of how the consumption of sugar - the addition of sugar to food and drink - became a fundamental and increasingly troublesome feature of modern life. Walvin's book is the heir to Sidney Mintz's Sweetness and Power , a brilliant sociological account, but now thirty years old. In addition, the problem of sugar, and the consequent intellectual and political debate about the role of sugar, has been totally transformed in the years since that book's publication.
