The modern successor to Sweetness and Power, James Walvin’s Sugar is a rich and engaging work on a topic that continues to change our world.

How did a simple commodity, once the prized monopoly of kings and princes, become an essential ingredient in the lives of millions, before mutating yet again into the cause of a global health epidemic?

Prior to 1600, sugar was a costly luxury, the domain of the rich. But with the rise of the sugar colonies in the New World over the following century, sugar became cheap, ubiquitous and an everyday necessity. Less than fifty years ago, few people suggested that sugar posed a global health problem. And yet today, sugar is regularly denounced as a dangerous addiction, on a par with tobacco. While sugar consumption remains higher than ever―in some countries as high as 100lbs per head per year―some advertisements even proudly proclaim that their product contains no sugar.

How did sugar grow from prize to pariah? Acclaimed historian James Walvin looks at the history of our collective sweet tooth, beginning with the sugar grown by enslaved people who had been uprooted and shipped vast distances to undertake the grueling labor on plantations. The combination of sugar and slavery would transform the tastes of the Western world.

Masterfully insightful and probing, James Walvin reveals the relationship between society and sweetness over the past two centuries―and how it explains our conflicted relationship with sugar today.

作为《甜蜜与权力》的现代继承者，詹姆斯-沃尔文的《糖》是一部内容丰富、引人入胜的作品，涉及一个继续改变我们世界的话题。

一种简单的商品，曾经是国王和王公贵族的专利，如何成为数百万人生活中必不可少的成分，然后再次变异为全球健康流行病的原因？

在1600年之前，糖是一种昂贵的奢侈品，是富人的专利。但在接下来的一个世纪里，随着新大陆上糖业殖民地的兴起，糖变得便宜，无处不在，成为日常必需品。不到五十年前，很少有人认为糖会带来全球健康问题。然而今天，糖经常被指责为一种危险的瘾，与烟草一样。虽然糖的消费量仍然比以往任何时候都高--有些国家每年每人高达100磅--有些广告甚至自豪地宣称他们的产品不含糖。

糖是如何从奖品变成贱民的？著名历史学家詹姆斯-沃尔文回顾了我们集体嗜好甜食的历史，从被奴役者种植的糖开始，他们被连根拔起，被运到遥远的地方，在种植园里从事艰苦的劳动。糖和奴隶制的结合将改变西方世界的口味。

詹姆斯-沃尔文以精湛的洞察力和探究精神，揭示了过去两个世纪中社会与甜味之间的关系，以及它如何解释我们今天与糖的冲突关系。