Sweetness And Power Summary

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Sweetness and Power The book Sweetness and Power written by Sidney W. Mintz(1985) was truly an empowering book written about the rise of sugar and how it has truly created a new world culture. The impact of the sugar was the main force of economic surge and the power of a new world order. But over time Mintz, an Anthropologist and graduate from Columbia University, has expressed how sugar has created a new modern problem with the foods Americans consume today and the impact on the human body and nutrition. Mintz has gone back in time to explain consumption, production, and Power of sugar with his lifelong research of the Caribbean. Afterwards he goes into detail about how cultural changes evolved society to the way it is today. This book was …show more content…
The consumption of sugar was used in medicine, spice-condiments, decorative material, sweetener, and preservation. The consumption of sugar has always been in demand sugar was used in medicine and spice long before reaching Europe. “Biographer of Saint Louis truly believed that spices were fished out of the Nile” (Mintz 81). Arabs used sugar in medicine syrup mixtures; Hot water, fruits, herbs, and flower petals. Even rose sugar was recommended rose sugar to break fever. Sugar coating around pills and even baked into white bread a combination of medicine and nutrition in Europe. People wanted Sugar, but was very expensive. Sugar was carved into marvelous decorations to show off wealth and purity, “Henry II recorded the royal household consumed about 6,258 pounds of sugar.” (Mintz 83). In the 16th century the baking of sugar cookies and biscuits starting Holiday fowl, The Persian Emperor, Sultan, used over 73,300 kilos during Ramadan. Food spices and cooking became a hot commodity in the importation of sugar. Royal meals would almost have sugar in every meal either used for baking or for spicing meats. One of the first cookbooks was ever written by Hannah Glasse, The Art of …show more content…
After laying out examples and stats he shares the controversies of earlier times and how it has led to the impacts of today. In production the biggest issue is slave labor. Salve were the evolution of the modern world, traded from Africa for rum, cloth, and other good that didn’t help build or help the industrialization of Africa. Slave trade diversified capitalistic economy and serviced before revolution in Haiti and growth of the idea of free trade. Slavery was abolished in 1834-38 in the British Empire, and was no longer depended of slave labor. This created questions about what “real capitalism” was. Mintz states “…that the plantation were themselves precocious cases of industrialization. But this does not necessarily mean that the European economy that gave rise to these plantations was capitalist”

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