Bittersweet: The story of sugar

(Paperback)

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Description

Forty years after first chewing on sugar cane in New Guinea, the home of sugar, the author underwent some complex dental work as a direct result of his sweet tooth. This led him to explore sugar cane's journey from New Guinea to Shakespeare's England. In the days before dentistry, people paid dearly for this sweet new food from exotic places - Queen Elizabeth I became so partial to hippocras, sugared almonds and pastilles that her teeth turned completely black. Through the ages sugar has offered opportunities of tremendous riches to the unscrupulous few who grew and sold it. But in the days of manual processing, these fortunes were built on the backbreaking labour of slaves. This history explores the effects that sugar has had on the world - a foodstuff we take for granted and indulge in more than we should has caused wars and geopolitical balances that have shaped the modern world and the power balances we see in the 21st century.

Reviews

Lively and entertaining: a splendid saga for the general reader. "Kirkus Reviews"
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"Lively and entertaining: a splendid saga for the general reader." --"Kirkus Reviews"

Author Bio

Peter Macinnis has been involved in bringing science to the general public for many years. Formerly a science teacher, he has written a number of school textbooks and science readers, and writes for a number of magazines for adults and children. He left teaching to work as a bureaucrat, first at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum and later at the Australian Museum, before returning to teaching once more, combined with part-time writing. Over the years, he has recorded many talks for radio programs developed by the ABC Science Unit. For the past three years, he has been a full-time writer for multi-media products with WebsterWorld, an Australian online encyclopedia, and he edits The Communicator, the organ of the Australian Science Communicators.