Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-315) and index.

Introduction: Sugar in our time -- A traditional taste -- The march of decay -- Sugar and slavery -- Environmental impact -- Shopping for sugar -- A perfect match for tea and coffee -- Pandering to the palate -- Rum makes its mark -- Sugar goes global -- The sweetening of America -- Power shifts in the New World -- A sweeter war and peace -- Obesity matters -- The way we eat now -- Hard truth about soft drinks -- Turning the tide--beyond the sugar tax -- Conclusion: Bitter-sweet prospects.

How did a simple commodity, once the prized monopoly of kings and princes, become an essential ingredient in the lives of millions, before mutating yet again into the cause of a global health epidemic? Prior to 1600, sugar was a costly luxury, the domain of the rich. But with the rise of the sugar colonies in the New World over the following century, sugar became cheap, ubiquitous and an everyday necessity. Less than fifty years ago, few people suggested that sugar posed a global health problem. And yet today, sugar is regularly denounced as a dangerous addiction, on a par with tobacco. . . . Acclaimed historian James Walvin looks at the history of our collective sweet tooth, beginning with the sugar grown by enslaved people who had been uprooted and shipped vast distances to undertake the grueling labor on plantations. The combination of sugar and slavery would transform the tastes of the Western world"--dust jacket.