Sweetness and power (1985)

Sidney Mintz conducts a sweeping anthropological and historical voyage charting how sugarcane crossed oceans from New Guinea and Mediterranean outposts to dominate the Caribbean basin. Tracing the brutal triangular trade routes that linked European industrial capitals, West African coasts, and slave-worked tropical plantations, the work demonstrates how an elite luxury became the indispensable fuel of the British working class. It offers a piercing geopolitical expedition into the colonial commerce and human toil that forged modern global capitalism.