Monday, January 27, 2020

Week 3.1 & 3.2 - Sweetness and Power

This book's premise is a simple question: how did sugar transform from a rare and pricy spice to one of the most ubiquitous global commodities? In the sections assigned for this week, what are some of the social and cultural factors that led to this transformations? What are the economics behind the transformation of sugar into a global commodity?

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Sweetness and Power | Intro-Ch.1


Throughout the introduction of Mintz's Sweetness and Power, he spends a few paragraphs on the sheer enrapturement that is felt within the Carribean with sugar cane. He discusses specifically Barrio Jauca (in Puerto Rico), where he mentions that he felt as though he was standing "in a sea of cane" (xviii). Mintz continues to describe how nearly every part of life is centered around sugar cane, despite Puerto Rico being only a small amount of the consumption of the good. When Mintz describes that even when looking around at the workers, a lot of them are also chewing on the cane, it paints a surreal picture of a life that is truly centered around one good. While it's clear that American society is just as focused more generally on Late Capitalism and revolves around its notions, when I tried to think of anything in modern America that compares to this exact enrapturement of Barrio Jauca with sugar cane, I drew a blank. Is there anything you can compare sugar cane to in our modern times here?