For more than two millennia it remained largely unknown, if not as a rare luxury and a sign of power, before gradually turning into a widespread danger to humanity. But what is it? Sugar: a molecule – sucrose – much more difficult to extract than salt, good to taste but not very useful for food.
European capitalism has set up a global sugar market, necessary to satisfy new needs. These then spread to the whole world. In the 19th century, this unique commodity came from the exploitation of colonies and slaves. Today, it sits prominently in every closet and every controversy in the food industry. With The World of Sugar (Harvard University Press), the historian Ulbe Bosma looks back on the technical inventions, the economic arrangements and the discomforts of a planet that indulges in the joys and addictions of sugar. His observations on the news are all the more resounding.
When Europeans absorb about 40 kilos of sugar per year and per person, Americans are at 60. The causes of obesity and associated diseases are not far to seek. Moreover, underlines Bosma, such a demand induces a strong pressure on the environment insofar as more land must be devoted to this culture. It ensues, rather like alcohol, conflicts between producers who earn money, consumers whose metabolism adapts, medical science which is concerned, States which are concerned at the same time with public health and tax revenue. Bosma dissects the stories of a “colonial sugar bourgeoisie” which knew how to take advantage of the industrial revolution and then of the evolutions of marketing. The author, in great detail, introduces us, on all continents, to the members of the dynasties of sugar capitalism which have powerfully transformed our existence. At our consenting bodies, but ultimately at our expense.
This scholarly work reminds us that white gold and its promoters have their dark sides, not only in terms of health, but also through their environmental and social impacts. It shows that sugar occupies an eminent place in the history of capitalism, a mixture of formidable entrepreneurial adventures and scourges linked to overexploitation and overconsumption. To be consumed individually with the greatest moderation and, according to the author, with much more collective regulation.
Ulbe Bosma, The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health and Environment over 2000 YearsHarvard University Press, 2023, 416 pages.
Three stars