The World of Sugar
How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years
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The World of Sugar
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Narrated by:
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Julian Elfer
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By:
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Ulbe Bosma
About this listen
For most of history, humans did without refined sugar. Granulated sugar was first produced in India around the sixth century BC, yet for almost 2,500 years afterward sugar remained marginal in the diets of most people. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere. How did sugar find its way into almost all the food we eat, fostering illness and ecological crisis along the way?
The World of Sugar begins with the earliest evidence of sugar production. Through the Middle Ages, traders brought small quantities to rajahs, emperors, and caliphs. But after sugar crossed the Mediterranean to Europe, demand spawned a brutal quest for supply. European cravings were satisfied by enslaved labor; two-thirds of the 12.5 million Africans taken across the Atlantic were destined for sugar plantations. By the twentieth century, sugar was a major source of calories in diets across Europe and North America.
Sugar transformed life on every continent, creating and destroying whole cultures through industrialization, labor migration, and changes in diet. Sugar made fortunes, corrupted governments, and shaped the policies of technocrats. In Ulbe Bosma's definitive telling, to understand sugar's past is to glimpse the origins of our own world and begin to see the threat that a not-so-simple commodity poses to our bodies, our environment, and our communities.
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- Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
- By: Eduardo Galeano, Isabel Allende - Foreward
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,276
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 995
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 985
Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Please up-date the addition
- By fishrock on 02-20-10
By: Eduardo Galeano, and others
-
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
- A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet
- By: Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 89
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A remarkable exposé & synthesis of the Ponzi scheme that capitalism is and always has been.
- By Scott on 02-10-18
By: Raj Patel, and others
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The Ages of Globalization
- Geography, Technology, and Institutions
- By: Jeffrey D. Sachs
- Narrated by: Steve Menasche
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 49
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
Today's most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity's story has always been on a global scale. Sachs takes listeners through a series of seven distinct waves of technological and institutional change, starting with the original settling of the planet by early modern humans through long-distance migration and ending with reflections on today's globalization.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Narrator.
- By ROGER QUESADA on 08-03-20
By: Jeffrey D. Sachs
-
Capitalism and Slavery
- Third Edition
- By: Eric Williams
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 46
Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide. Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Historical Reading for the Caribbean
- By Trinirastawoman on 06-01-22
By: Eric Williams
-
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
- Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor
- By: David S. Landes
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 21 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is David S. Landes' acclaimed, best-selling exploration of one of the most contentious and hotly debated questions of our time: Why do some nations achieve economic success while others remain mired in poverty? The answer, as Landes definitively illustrates, is a complex interplay of cultural mores and historical circumstance.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A detailed explanation
- By Kaarlis on 12-07-21
By: David S. Landes
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Animal, Vegetable, Junk
- A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal
- By: Mark Bittman
- Narrated by: Mark Bittman
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 229
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 195
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 193
The story of humankind is usually told as one of technological innovation and economic influence—of arrowheads and atomic bombs, settlers and stock markets. But behind it all, there is an even more fundamental driver: Food. In Animal, Vegetable, Junk, trusted food authority Mark Bittman offers a panoramic view of how the frenzy for food has driven human history to some of its most catastrophic moments.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Mostly Junk
- By Daniel Ducat on 05-22-21
By: Mark Bittman
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Owning the Earth
- The Transforming History of Land Ownership
- By: Andro Linklater
- Narrated by: J. Paul Guimont
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
The history and evolution of land ownership is a fascinating chronicle in the history of civilization, offering unexpected insights about how various forms of democracy and capitalism developed, as well as a revealing analysis of a future where the Earth must sustain nine billion lives. Seen through the eyes of remarkable individuals - Chinese emperors; German peasants; the 17th century English surveyor William Petty, who first saw the connection between private property and free-market capitalism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting
- By S. Olsen on 06-30-15
By: Andro Linklater
-
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
- By: Walter Rodney, Angela Y. Davis - foreword
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 548
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 465
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 456
Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the West and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the repercussions of European colonialism in Africa remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Superb must read for everyone
- By Joy on 04-16-19
By: Walter Rodney, and others
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Coffeeland
- One Man's Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug
- By: Augustine Sedgewick
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 126
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 104
Coffee is an indispensable part of daily life for billions of people around the world - one of the most valuable commodities in the history of global capitalism, the leading source of the world's most popular drug, and perhaps the most widespread word on the planet. Augustine Sedgewick's Coffeeland tells the hidden and surprising story of how this came to be, tracing coffee's 500-year transformation from a mysterious Muslim ritual into an everyday necessity.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Unfortunately
- By Brian on 06-06-20
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Sugar
- The World Corrupted from Slavery to Obesity
- By: James Walvin
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 49
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 40
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 50 years ago, few people suggested that sugar posed a global health problem.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I should have listened to the other reviews
- By L. Bergman on 12-31-18
By: James Walvin
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An Empire of Wealth
- The Epic History of American Economic Power
- By: John Steele Gordon
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 58
Throughout time, from ancient Rome to modern Britain, the great empires built and maintained their domination through force of arms and political power. But not the United States. America has dominated the world in a new, peaceful, and pervasive way - through the continued creation of staggering wealth. In this authoritative, engrossing history, John Steele Gordon captures as never before the true source of our nation's global influence: wealth and the capacity to create more of it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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KNOW YOUR HISTORY!
- By CP Guy on 12-22-20
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Slavery's Capitalism
- A New History of American Economic Development
- By: Sven Beckert - editor, Seth Rockman - editor
- Narrated by: William Hughes, Kevin Kenerly, Bahni Turpin, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 432
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 367
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 367
During the 19th century, the United States entered the ranks of the world's most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage. This was no mere coincidence. Slavery's Capitalism argues for slavery's centrality to the emergence of American capitalism in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War.
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1 out of 5 stars
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The volume is so low I can't hear it.
- By Anonymous User on 01-30-18
By: Sven Beckert - editor, and others
-
Late Victorian Holocausts
- El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
- By: Mike Davis
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China, and Northeastern Brazil.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mike Davis on Audible!
- By Nathan D. Backlund on 09-02-17
By: Mike Davis
-
Blood and Money
- War, Slavery, Finance, and Empire
- By: David McNally
- Narrated by: Tim Getman
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
In most accounts of the origins of money, we are offered pleasant tales in which it arises to the mutual benefit of all parties as a result of barter. In this groundbreaking study David McNally reveals the true story of money's origins and development as one of violence and human bondage. Money's emergence and its transformation are shown to be intimately connected to the buying and selling of slaves and the waging of war.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Blood Money
- By Tyrone on 03-19-22
By: David McNally
-
An Edible History of Humanity
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 567
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 464
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 464
Throughout history, food has acted as a catalyst of social change, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is a pithy, entertaining account of how a series of changes---caused, enabled, or influenced by food---has helped to shape and transform societies around the world.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Flawed, but worthwhile
- By Ary Shalizi on 12-28-17
By: Tom Standage
-
Brazil
- The Troubled Rise of a Global Power
- By: Michael Reid
- Narrated by: Michael Healy
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 63
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 59
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Experts believe that Brazil, the world's fifth largest country and its seventh largest economy, will be one of the most important global powers by the year 2030. Yet far more attention has been paid to the other rising behemoths: Russia, India, and China. Often ignored and underappreciated, Brazil, according to renowned, award-winning journalist Michael Reid, has finally begun to live up to its potential but faces important challenges before it becomes a nation of substantial global significance.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good short history of Brazil, lame pronunciation
- By Bubu Mungani on 07-21-19
By: Michael Reid
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Here is Peter Caddick-Adams's third volume in his trilogy about the final year of the Western front in World War Two. Fire & Steel covers the war's final 100 days—beginning in late January 1945 and continuing until May 8, 1945, when the German high command surrendered unconditionally to all Allied forces. Caddick-Adams's previous two volumes in the acclaimed series—Sand & Steel, which covers the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, and Snow & Steel, the definitive study of the Battle of the Bulge—have set the stage for this concluding volume.
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Transcribed from the original lectures recorded at San Francisco State University in 1987, The Nature of Drugs series highlights Shulgin’s engaging lecture style peppered with illuminating anecdotes and amusing asides. Ostensibly taught as an introductory course on drugs and biochemistry, these books serve as both a historical record of Shulgin’s teaching style and the culmination of his philosophy on drugs, psychopharmacology, states of consciousness, and societal and individual freedoms pertaining to their use, both medicinal and exploratory.
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In his beloved book The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben revealed astonishing discoveries about the social networks of trees and how they communicate. Now, in The Power of Trees, he turns to their future, with a searing critique of forestry management, tree planting, and the exploitation of old growth forests. At the heart of The Power of Trees lies Wohlleben’s passionate plea: that our survival is dependent on trusting ancient forests, and allowing them to thrive.
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Critical Urgency
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In the fourth century AD, a new faith exploded out of Palestine. Overwhelming the paganism of Rome, and converting the Emperor Constantine in the process, it resoundingly defeated a host of other rivals. Almost a thousand years later, all of Europe was controlled by Christian rulers, and the religion, ingrained within culture and society, exercised a monolithic hold over its population. But, as Peter Heather shows in this compelling new history, there was nothing inevitable about Christendom's rise to Europe-wide dominance.
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What I Thought I Knew…
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The Blind Spot
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Story4 out of 5 stars 10
The Blind Spot goes where no science book goes, urging us to create a new scientific culture that views ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature's self-understanding, so that humanity can flourish in the new millennium.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good book.
- By Daniel L Mercer on 08-01-24
By: Adam Frank, and others
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The Patriarchs
- The Origins of Inequality
- By: Angela Saini
- Narrated by: Sohm Kapila
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story5 out of 5 stars 27
For fans of Sapiens and The Dawn of Everything, a groundbreaking exploration of gendered oppression—its origins, its histories, our attempts to understand it, and our efforts to combat it.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Patriarchys over time and space
- By Lynda Dickson on 12-22-23
By: Angela Saini
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Wonderful Life
- The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
- By: Stephen Jay Gould
- Narrated by: Jonathan Sleep
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 13
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 11
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11
High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It holds the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book, Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Science made interesting
- By An Old Crow on 09-13-23
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Revolusi
- Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World
- By: David Van Reybrouck
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 16
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 14
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 14
In August 1945, a handful of people raised a homemade cotton flag and announced the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first country to rid itself of colonial rule after WWII.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Solid Historical Survey
- By DavidPrestonokwu on 06-05-24
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Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test
- How Behavior Evolves and Why It Matters
- By: Marlene Zuk
- Narrated by: Jaime Lamchick
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 12
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 10
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 10
For centuries, people have been returning to the same tired nature-versus-nurture debate, trying to determine what we learn and what we inherit. In Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test, biologist Marlene Zuk goes beyond the binary and instead focuses on interaction, or the way that genes and environment work together. Driving her investigation is a simple but essential question: How does behavior evolve?
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good information, but reader distracts from it.
- By Jeremy Proctor on 02-13-23
By: Marlene Zuk
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Mao's Great Famine
- The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62
- By: Frank Dikötter
- Narrated by: Daniel York Loh
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 8
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7
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Story5 out of 5 stars 7
Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and overtake the West in less than fifteen years. It led to one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known. Dikotter's extraordinary research within Chinese archives brings together for the first time what happened in the corridors of power with the everyday experiences of ordinary people, giving voice to the dead and disenfranchised. This groundbreaking account definitively recasts the history of the People's Republic of China.
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5 out of 5 stars
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how it describes the horrors with anecdotes and then uses stats to show bot only did it happen but also that it was common
- By Donald on 06-28-24
By: Frank Dikötter
What listeners say about The World of Sugar
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 11-05-23
Important work well-told
Very comprehensive account and analysis from the angles and perspectives of the underside of history. You have to love historical details to stay tuned as it can be a tad dry in places, but it’s thematic arcs and socio-economic critique are poignant and much needed
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