Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History

Sidney W. Mintz's Sweetness and Power situates economic analysis in consumption rather than production. The author believes that a producer's labor and exploitation is not enough to understand the exploitation of production. One must unpack the mythos of demand. Central to this is the idea that rational choice leads liberal individuals to consume products because it is in their best interest. Mintz correctly implies that in... Read Full Review

Sidney Mintz provides and an excellent background on the impact that sugar has made on humankind in the past 400 years. The theme of the of the books centers on sugar within the British economy and culture but provides a different insight on European colonialism and the impact of specialty items in mercantilism economies. Although the book reads as a straight history text, Mintz, as a trained anthropologist, provides a provocative... Read Full Review

I bought this book simply out of curiousity, and it was marvelous! It really details the ways in which the sugar trade transformed and created the modern world -- I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in how markets act and how the history of substances we view as everyday. My one complaint is an overly long section tracing the rise in English sugar consumption, but the political and economic facts are... Read Full Review

I found this book very interesting as I read it for a development anthropology class. Mintz gives a detailed and informative history of the development of sugar as a commodity from the colonial age to the present. Coming from an anthropological point of view, he examines the cultural impact of sugar production on the Carribean nations that produce it. He also displays how British organization of the industry in their colonies... Read Full Review