Now i am so pleased in to introduce tonights speakers ulbe bosma is the Senior Researcher at the Internet Institute of social history and professor of International Social history at the Free University of amsterdam. He is the author of the making of a periphery and the sugar plantation in india and indonesia. He is joined in conversation tonight sharmila sen the editorial and director of special initiative at Harvard University press. She was formerly a faculty member of the Harvard English Department and is the author the Award Winning . Not quite. Not losing and finding race in america tonight. Elizabeth asma is presenting his new book, the world of sugar how the sweet stuff transformed our politics, health and, environment over 2000 years. This book, a definitive 2500 year history of sugar and its human costs, which author sven beckert says explores something as mundane as sugar came to play a crucial role in making of the world we inhabit today. Attentive to local specificity as much to earth, spanning connections to culture and capital, power and poverty. This book is global history at its best. Were so pleased to host this event here at Harvard Bookstore tonight. Pleased me in welcoming elba bosma sharmila sen. Turner. I dont think this is on. Thank you. And its wonderful to be back and. Harvard bookstore again after all those years during the pandemic when we had to have the virtual events. So this is to say we dont take these kinds of events lightly because we really have missed these kinds of connections and these inperson events. And thanks to all of you today for joining us to talk about this book, which is about be released. So this is kind of think of it, this is a sneak peek at elba was definitive history of a commodity that we all have in our kitchens. Im going to kind of keep this fairly conversational today elba and i have been about this book for the last two years. Im going to maybe take us through little bit of, you know, remembering the story, what got on this topic. And then im going to leave a good amount of time, actually, for conversation because its very nice to see you all in person. And i know that youve, you know, everybody has made time in their busy wednesday to come here we would to kind of make this a collaborative conversational hour. With that, ill just get us started by telling you that the moment i heard about this book and elba, youll remember this, this was probably almost two years ago now. I remem byrd and maybe some of you in this room know that book thats. Sidney mintz, classic sweetness and. Its a book that i had read the early 1990s, and i still have that dog eared copy. Sidney mintz makes an appearance in your own book and and as as i still love that and its a classic of on its own right i knew this was time for an update of sweetness and power were to have a 21st century new update this was the book which would take us far beyond the Atlantic World, far beyond the kind, you know, the 500 years or so that mints had covered and and would also address issues such as, you know, the environmental consequences of sugar, of cultivation. So it was very exciting. But thats my story. Elba when i first, you know, we were introduced each other by a mutual friend and i thought, oh my god, you know, finally i get to publish an update of. My favorite classic mints book, whats your story . I love hearing sort of how authors get idea for embarking on a new subject. Yeah. In fact, it was also thanks to city mints. I was working on java, i think, in the late 1990s and i came across sugar because i was working on duration population of of java they were involved in sugar production and java in the late 19th and early 20th century was the second largest sugar exporter after cuba. So what was more logical than trying to to compare the experience of java and the caribbean region. And while doing that, i was organizing it with a colleague was also work on java. We thought, well thats in 5 to 10 admins to amsterdam and we the company. This invitation was a good cuisine because sydney is also a gastronomic anthropologist and he came to amsterdam and we had a wonderful very small workshop and that was the start for me to think about how to write about sugar and said, vince, explain to us. Thats to study the the, the of the Global Economy and days we would say the emergence of global capitalism. Sugar wasnt excellent entrance and. The sugar is a way to see how Global Connections evolved. And you could also say that sugar, the 19th century was what oil would be is a 20th century. So to understand how the world became connected to sugar is an excellent commodity to to start with. So that was i started as a comparison between asia and and the caribbean region brazil and louisiana so between asia and and and latin america and then of course i had to take yes but also other sugars have also beet sugar and. Gradually i discovered that not all sugar was Industrial Sugar that also sugar that was produced in india for since time immemorial and never reached a factory or an industry was was just peasant sugar was a cut of raw sugar which still exists today and still very popular india. So different kinds of sugar which competed for consumers and i think made a very interesting and i think i for a also and a exciting story to to read about. Oh youre right that there are of course of all kinds of that has existed in 2500 years of the history of cultivating sugar everything quite reached mass market. I think you were referring to gourd or jaggery right. Which is that that kind of sugar that has existed in india, i grew up eating that im from india. I also think i was attracted to this book because im from exactly a part of india where the earliest historical, recorded, refined sugar refineries existed. Its also my excuse for saying, why have such a sweet tooth . Despite having read this book and i know all about how bad this is, but you know, think 2500 years. Its in my blood now. Take us back a little bit to sugar in asia because i think a lot us in this country if know a little bit about sugar we know course sugar in the new world sugar from the caribbean plantations and so forth. And well get to in a second. But lets begin at the beginning. And, you know how people went about creating this thing of romans know of sugar. The greeks when they came with alexander you know they didnt know sugar they call it a gas the knees called sugar cane reeds bearing honey because honey was a sweetener. Yeah. So asian sugar, is it . Well, i think it to notice thats until 1870s. 1880s. Most of the sugar this world was produced in asia and not in the atlantic realm. So thats something which few people. But its very important. So for many, for most of time where sugar was, it was produced in india and in china. So theres a two largest Sugar Producers in the world. And in india, it started first crystallized sugar. We do not exactly know, but it must have about 2000 years ago that people discovered how to refined sugar if you boil sugar or sugar sirup from from cane, you dont sugar, you get a kind of thick sugary mass. But theres not sure, not crystalline sugar. We know table so you have to add alkaloids you have to add salt some some lime and you have to know how to boil this the sirup into sugar and this is a process which people. About 2000 1500 years ago and its spread from india first to china and to to persia and then later on it came and egypt and so it traveled through the mediterranean, eventually ended up in the atlantic realm. Then we talk about the 16th century. So theres a long history. Its a long history of a very complicated process to make sugar during this period, this early period, lets say, for the first 1500 years, if you will, of sugars, existence in human history. What what did it play, you know, on the table or in someones home or just in diet . Yeah. Well it came not in the homes of ordinary people either. Sugar im talking about now. It was a part of the love of the traditions, rituals, of course, of of of amia, of of colleagues. It was used, for example, make sculptures. It was sculpturing material. So when you came the courts for the mogul india or did the emperor of china or the caliph of back of of or of cairo. These people made had their cooks who made beautiful sculptures of sugar so there was one one um destiny of refined sugar. The other one was medicinal because people discovered that if you had for example, diarrhea, people were dehydrate. If they were given some water with, sugar, which was dissolved into water, people could be kept alive. It was medicinal potency, which is still has today, by the way. But it was also philosophically important and because galvanic medicine, which has talked about the four humors of the human body, which had to be in a kind of equilibrium, sugar in the clinic medicine played, a very important role. And in medicine was spread from rome to uh to to beijing. So it was throughout eurasia. So these two factors were these two factors made sugar popular in these days though it was very difficult to to get because it was so expensive in these days to. So i guess now the obvious question is and this is how i remember once we were having a conversation and zoom this was during the period of the lockdown and you were telling me about looking around in your kitchen and even did this exercise in my kitchen and trying to find how much sugar there was know not just in the in the sugar, but just in everything. Right. That we were talking about, say, the modern american diet. But perhaps its you know, there are some global versions of this up in the netherlands for instance where you are, you said, you know, theres a lot of in food. How do we go from something being this very luxury item because it sounds like thats what it was to it become, you know, completely ubiquitous. Yeah. Well, the short answer is, the Industrial Revolution, as soon as people how to process cane in the Industrial Way and to to make the refining process also industrial process it sure could become much much cheaper than it was until lets say 1800. So after 1800s, after 32, 1840s, uh, the whole process of sugar making became industrialized and. So huge quantities of, of relatively refined sugar became on the market at the same time. And this already whats said mills has pointed that there was a proletariat the urban proletariat became larger and larger and they were they will malnourished and to keep their energy a certain level which was necessary to keep them working in the factories. They had their cups of tea in the morning with a bit of sugar. So thats how sugar became consumption. Good for the for the masses so to speak. And over time. Um, the sugar industry grew, became important, became, uh, also politically more powerful, uh, with europe and united uh, first in europe, later on the United States, we had to be sugar industry. Um, over the course the 19th century in industrial as well it overproduction of of sugar emerged at the start that the market do its work and eliminate part of the sugar governments start to these industries. It to encourage people to consume sugar. For example they put the arms sugar in the rations of soldiers. Um sugar was prescribed as a kind of energy giver. Um, can these were considered to be food in these days. And then we, of course we the beverage industry, the cocacola and then and and the with lots of sugar. But i think two things Industrial Revolution. Thats one thing the soda the idea theres the supply side the other side the demand side that sugar was considered to be an energy give a very Efficient Energy give to people so the Industrial Revolution. I mean in some i think what you say this book and which youre right even vincent had pointed this out is both creating its making this kind of supply of sugar in fact an oversupply possible but then because of the new proletariat right i mean i will never forget this as a means thing that you would remember to write that that idea of at the cup of afternoon cup of tea or morning very sweet cup of tea of the British Working class and the late 19th century with those sweet or what we call cookies in america and how much calories it produced, its kind of adding cheap calories and often also as women are joining the workforce. So a certain kind of change diets happen. But i think youre also saying that its not just all natural, right . Well, obviously, youre a historian so you you push us against naturalizing things you historicity said so that there is also a demand being created right. And are these Government Forces are these private enterprise . Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the powerful sugar families, the sugar. Yeah. So suddenly sugar is considered a food. Its added as army rations and on and so forth. Yeah well that the interesting thing of sugar is it is both agriculture your products as well as Industrial Products and the agriculture side, particularly beet sugar industry. Um, contains hundreds of thousands of farmers who are involved in producing sugar. So thats a very potent political constituency, politically speaking. On the other, there are the refiners and they are highly concentrated. So they are usually working in cartels. And it was the case of the United States example by the late 19th century we had, the socalled sugar trust, it was known as the sugar trust. Publicly, it was harris who has the figurehead was henry hill. Half of myra was a wellknown sugar refiner in new york, and this group was very, very powerful. And they were capable of convincing the government of the United States to impose tariff structures to keep sugar from germany, for example, out of the United States. So there has always been a strong interaction between political because there were constituencies voters, farmers were voters on the one hand, and a very powerful and highly concentrated refining industry. It was the case in the United States, it was a case of germany, was the case in england. So the United States is no exception to the to the rule that respect a certain sugar. Lets lets turn a little from the consumers of sugar those who made it different processes right from cutting cane to working in refineries sugar one of the ways in which certainly the 19th century as we were talking comes to becomes cheap and it sweetens the three bitter beverages colonialism you could say, which is tea, coffee and chocolate and if you think about it, none of those beverages in their point of or culture of origin were drunk, sweetened originally. Tea, coffee chocolate were not originally drunk sweetened. But it is part of this kind of, you know, modern european imperial and this kind of sugar emerging as a global commodity and a cheap one where it starts sweetening. Lets move to the Atlantic World and about the role of sugar and the atlantic slave trade and perhaps i can get you to say a few things. Also, sugars role in abolish and abolition movement. Yeah i think very important to realize is that when we talk about the 12 and a half Million People made the Middle Passage that probably thirds of them ended up at sugar plantations and conditions were terrible cane fields were really killing fields. So the starvation mortality in the cane fields was much higher example than the cotton fields or in the tobacco fields. So this is very important to realize. So in the end, one can say there were about 8 Million People who ended up at sugar plantations to work their their. There was a lot of resistance i think this was also very important to realize the resistance was there from the very beginning, the early 16th century to the very end. Lets say the baptist rebellion, 25, 25th of december, 1831. Was it which convinces some parliamentary in and in england that stay free should be abolished. It should not be prolonged. So that led to the abolition of itself within the british in 1834. But there was protest in britain itself. There are also people who said, and particularly the quakers, we were a very important factor in this abolitionist. There were english wives, said, we dont want to consume sugar. That dripping with blood. And they said, well, as alternative we can consume sugar from india its there and england just colonize india. So there was plenty supply from this region and. They said, well, lets export cotton to india. And they produced sugar for us. Nice deal. Okay. Was the result, of course, was the destruction of part of the indian cotton, the textile industry. But the is indeed thats that there was a glimmer hope in this very grim story and the glimmer of hope was, first of all, the resistance by, those who were who to work at the plantations is one thing. And the other thing is people said, well, this is absolutely immoral whats going on here. So the have a role to think. But this might be also an example these days that people can and can say, okay, this is no longer acceptable. Us oh, yes, one thing and is of course that in the early 19th century and in the 1820s and there was a movement that was led by women is to my knowledge, the first Fair Trade Movement in the world. So thats also the of sugar. Im going to ask one more question and then i had kind of made promise to myself, to you, that i wanted to have at least half of this time allotted to us for here. So im going to allow myself one question and then lets open it up. Okay. Which i want to talk about the environment of because sugar like many other crops that are, you know, sugar cultivation led to basically, you know, massive transportation of flora and fauna. And of course, people across continents. Can we talk a little bit about and you can pick any area or any time period about the kind of the ramifications of sugar cultivation, particularly, lets say from the 19th century onwards, you know, ramping up and perhaps also touch on beet sugar and europe. Yeah. First of all, sugar. Well, back exhaust the soil. Thats thats one thing we have to to to acknowledge until the