A fascinating persuasive history of how sugar has shaped the world, from European colonies to our modern diets In this eye-opening study, Sidney Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life, and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar, and reveals how closely interwoven are sugar's origins as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies with is use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new industrial proletariat. Finally, he considers how sugar has altered work patterns, eating habits, and our diet in modern times. "Like sugar, Mintz is persuasive, and his detailed history is a real treat." -San Francisco Chronicle

Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History

History

Mintz, Sidney W.

Americas

Penguin??Books

This is the absorbing story of Don Taso, a Puerto Rican sugar cane worker, and of his family and the village in which he lives. Told largely in his own words, it is a vivid account of the drastic changes taking place in Puerto Rico, as he sees them.Worker in the Cane is both a profound social document and a moving spiritual testimony. Don Taso portrays his harsh childhood, his courtship and early marriage, his grim struggle to provide for his family. He tells of his radical political beliefs and union activity during the Depression and describes his hardships when he was blacklisted because of his outspoken convictions. Embittered by his continuing poverty and by a serious illness, he undergoes a dramatic cure and becomes converted to a Protestant revivalist sect. In the concluding chapters the author interprets Don Taso's experience in the light of the changing patterns of life in rural Puerto Rico.

Worker in the Cane: A Puerto Rican Life History

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

W.W.Norton&Company

Twelve noted international scholars examine selected significant aspects of the historical and contemporary experience of black peoples in the Americas and Africa. Bibliogs

Slavery, Colonialism and Racism: Essays

Sociology

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

Alexander Lesser, one of Franz Boas's finest students, and probably one of the best of his time in his research on the Plains Indians, is a brilliant but neglected figure in American anthropology. This representative selection of Lesser's work is designed to make the range of his writings accessible to a broad audience. His work is of particular interest to present-day readers for its advocacy of an historical-evolutionary perspective in anthropology. Such an approach, almost unique at the time Lesser was writing, has become increasingly widely appreciated since. His work is also of interest for the light it throws on the British 'functionalist' school, and the effects of their views on American anthropology.

History, Evolution and the Concept of Culture: Selected Papers by Alexander Lesser

Anthropology

Cambridge University Press

Sugar has been around for milennia, but only in the past two centuries has it become a significant foodstuff and major cash crop, and then only in the West. As a preservative, as a medicine, in decoration, as a spice or condiment, and as a sweetener, sugar has grown incredibly, even alarmingly, popular – and its use is still increasing. In this eye-opening study of how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modem life, and how a slave crop, and the growing demand for it, transformed the history of capitalism and industry, Sidney Mintz asks us to consider the many ways in which sugar has become "meaningful" in modern Western life. For while we might argue that all humans have an innate craving for sweetness, there is something special about what happened to sugar in the West, and it can only be explained by relating it to issues of imperial and class ambitions, power politics, and economic issues. Mintz discusses the history of the production and consumption of sugar, and shows how closely interwoven are its origins as a tropical slave crop grown in Europe's colonies with its use first as an extravagant luxury for the upper classes, then as a necessary part of the diet of the new industrial proletariat. His analysis of how sugar has penetrated social behavior opens up fascinating perspectives on the history of slavery, imperialism, and industrialization -- as well as on the anthropology of food and of Western societies. Finally Professor Mintz considers the meaning of food and eating in our own society. Sugar has facilitated the modern transformation of work patterns, consumption habits, and diet, and this book asks us to understand what this means. Its sobering but highly entertaining analysis of what sugar is doing to our social habits and our sense of ourselves makes brilliantly clear that one can never dissociate sweetness, and all that sweetness implies, from the harsher truths of power.

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Viking Adult

As a young anthropologist, Sidney Mintz undertook fieldwork in Jamaica, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. Fifty years later, the eminent scholar of the Caribbean returns to those experiences to meditate on the societies and on the island people who befriended him. These reflections illuminate continuities and differences between these cultures, but even more they exemplify the power of people to reveal their own history. 
Mintz seeks to conjoin his knowledge of the history of Jamaica, Haiti, and Puerto Rico―a dynamic past born of a confluence of peoples of a sort that has happened only a few times in human history―with the ways that he heard people speak about themselves and their lives. Mintz argues that in Jamaica and Haiti, creolization represented a tremendous creative act by enslaved peoples: that creolization was not a passive mixing of cultures, but an effort to create new hybrid institutions and cultural meanings to replace those that had been demolished by enslavement. Globalization is not the new phenomenon we take it to be. 
This book is both a summation of Mintz's groundbreaking work in the region and a reminder of how anthropology allows people to explore the deep truths that history may leave unexamined.

Three Ancient Colonies: Caribbean Themes and Variations (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures)

Harvard University Press

Mintz (anthropology, Johns Hopkins U.) writes provocatively and engagingly about eating as it defines our nature as living creatures our choices hold enormous significance for us. He shows how eating is influenced by a variety of external forces, including moral judgments and the demands of war. The eight essays include some that have been published before, and some new ones. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past

Beacon Pr

In this eye-opening study, Sidney W. Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life, and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar, and reveals how closely interwoven sugar's origins are as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies with its use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new industrial proletariat. Finally, he considers how sugar has altered work patterns, eating habits, and our diet in modern times.

Tantor Audio

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mintz, Sidney W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mintz, Sidney W.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mintz, Sidney W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History

Worker in the Cane: A Puerto Rican Life History

Slavery, Colonialism and Racism: Essays

History, Evolution and the Concept of Culture: Selected Papers by Alexander Lesser

History, Evolution and the Concept of Culture: Selected Papers by Alexander Lesser

Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History

Three Ancient Colonies: Caribbean Themes and Variations (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures)

Three Ancient Colonies: Caribbean Themes and Variations (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures)

Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past

Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History