January 15, 2018
British social historian Walvin (Crossings) charts the evolution of sugar from prized global commodity to the culprit behind the modern obesity epidemic, showing how a foodstuff once so ubiquitous that it was deemed “the general solace of all classes” came to wreak environmental and social havoc. Sugar’s inexorable rise began in the plantations of the 16th-century Caribbean, where the cheap labor of African slaves made it available in large quantities for the first time. The substance was soon all the rage in Europe, where both elites and ordinary citizens succumbed to its pleasures as well as to the previously unknown phenomenon of tooth decay—a symbol, for Walvin, of the ecological damage, moral degeneration, and public-health disaster sugar would cause in the centuries to come. Walvin’s tone is brisk and informative, particularly in chapters on the gradual intertwining of sugar and sociability through such institutions as cafés and factory “tea breaks.” But the book’s final section on sugar and obesity feels unconnected to its historical argument, and many themes here have been explored in greater depth elsewhere. Descriptions of sugar sculptures and breakfast customs only take Walvin so far: the rise of sugar was so relentless and unstoppable that the book feels devoid of sustained conflict or complexity.