Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.

Sidney W. Mintz

This covers the evolution and commoditization of Sucrose and its derivatives as well as how it has spread through societies, caused the enslavement of many people, enriched many merchants and invaded many aspects of life.   

I am a little hung-up on the idea of labor as a commodity. With Mintz’s introduction and in his chapter on production he has only added fuel to my fire. Mintz notes in the introduction that the plantations brought in “vast numbers of people in chains” and that some of the people if not slaves were people that only had labor to sell.  He goes on to note that free and enslaved people were used in the Canary Island production of sugar and that there were plantations that had as many as 500 slaves. Though the enslaved people or those trading labor for a price did not reap the full benefit of the commodity they produced their labor certainly had an economic value to the producer of the sugar.

If, as we have discussed in class, a commodity can have a life span, and it simply needs to be something that provides economic value that someone is willing to pay for, then I believe that labor can be a commodity.  Furthermore, today’s industry refers to its work force as Human Capitol; that sounds like something with an economic value.

Moving on, Mintz also brings up the fragility of the capitol markets, the fluctuation in the value of a commodity, and how speculation in the value of the commodity of sugar caused investors to profit millions of dollars and others to lose millions of dollars during the 1919-1920 Dance of Millions. Another point he noted regarding production that I found interesting was that the main reason production increased was not due to an increase in crop yield but improved processing methods and by acquiring more land cultivate the crop.  

Prior to reading this book I never considered the origin of sugar or how it became a staple in the US diet; it just always seemed to be there. Another thing that I find intriguing is how the use and fondness for sugar spread.  Explorers/military forces either visited/invaded places that had it and brought it home or nations were evaded and the soldiers brought it with them.