So many commodities, so little time.

Perhaps this book should be the one that "de-fetishizes commodities." After all, the overarching theme of the book is that the trade of commodities are linked together in a chain, not some magic product that others can exploit on a whim.

In a way, the book is helpful in that it can explain how commodities are treated in today's world. Take, for example, the discussion on sugar. Horacio Crespo goes to great pains to illustrate how each country wanted to depend on their own cheap subsidized supply of sugar rather than buy from other nations. The logic being that sugar is an extremely valuable commodity in that it was cheap, tasty, and fairly high in terms of calories. The United States attempted, for one, attempted to ween itself partway off Cuban sugar in favor of domestic sugar from Hawaii, Puerto Rico and other tropical holdings. Given the history presented, is it any wonder everything in the U.S. uses cheap, easily produced domestic sugar like High Fructose Corn Syrup? No wonder it saw fit to back the corn industry when it came under fire. (Again, I've enclosed a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWVFVNpEJFw)  

This is unusual since most of the books we have read do not offer this link back to today's society, which somewhat defeats the purpose of history. I suppose this might answer Carol's question about theories and thesiss (or thesi; whatever the plural for "thesis" is). A theory can be seen as a way to see the future by using the past: cheap sugar has played a role in national sovereignty and will therefore continue to do so. Or how the theory of evolution might ask what shapes life might make according to past conditions. A thesis goes in reverse: a way of reviewing the past via a present standpoint. Mintz used a pseudo-Marxian standpoint in order to consider how sugar effected capitalism. Obviously, though, given how these two might be set up, it might be difficult to separate them: how do you predict the future when you are using a futuristic mindset to view the past? Oh well. We can argue about that later.

I hesitate regarding Joseph's assertion that this book suffers from having non-economists view economic issues, partially because of the breath of commodities in the book. None of them appear to be equal to each other in the sense that availability is not the only factor in its pricing. Nationalism, for example, might dictate sugar imports, but not tobacco. In fact, Cuban tobacco was outright sought by countries outside of Spain for its quality. Even in a time of Mercantilism, English tobacco lovers seemed to choose Cuban tobacco over Virginian (although that might go with the English deposition towards free trade). While economics does play a role in trade, I would argue how products are perceived might go beyond the simple matter of price tags alone.