Mintz Sweetness And Power Summary

Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power is a detailed historical account of the discovery, production, and consumption of sugar in Europe. Tracing sugar’s introduction to Europe from the Arab world, the formation of the plantation systems in the Caribbean, to the transformation of sugar as an exotic spice to become a staple sweetener used by all social classes, Mintz argues that sugar is more than a simple commodity perpetuated by the fact that “human beings like sweetness” or exchanged through systems of free trade. Instead, he believes that the production, consumption, and symbolic meaning of sugar is constructed by social norms and power relations that reflects larger historical contexts. To illustrate these historical contexts, one theme

While the improvements in the production, transportation, and refinement systems of sugar in the 17th and 18th century were hallmarks of technological progress, the symbolic link between sugar and “progress” perhaps comes in a different, more cosmetic form: the whiteness of refined sugar. Mintz discusses how refined sugar is consistently a desirable item throughout the centuries, with whiteness associated with purity, cleanliness, and civilization. This is not just because white sugar is the most expensive, the most difficult to produce, and lends itself easily to be used in fancy pastries and dishes, but also due to the dominant narratives in the British Empire during this time, where darkness is associated with backwardness and sin. The improvement of the availability and accessibility of white sugar through the 19th century is then seen by many as a clear marker of progress towards civilization. Similar phenomenon can also be observed in the modern world – refined sugar continues to serve as the commodity that introduces “less developed” traditional culture to the “modern” and “developed” Western world. Mintz notes how many of these traditional societies, after contrasting their forms of traditional sweeteners and their less refined sugar to the pure white sugar of the West, find the products they were used to “old-fashioned” and “unsanitary", motivating them to embrace progress and modernity. In this way, we see how dominant social and historical narratives constructs and enforces the association between sugar and