In Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos set out to share the story of how the human craving for sugar enslaved millions, and maybe billions, of people and how so many abolitionist movements were started because of sugar. The sugar industry has since evolved into a, obviously, multi-billion dollar compnay. Aronson and Budhos accomplish their task by revealing the gruesome truth about the start of the sugar cane industry. This book takes you all the way from the Caribbean to Africa, telling the stories of the families of those enslaved. One hundred percent of the time, the white man who first 'discovered' that area with sugar, enslaved the majority of people there. Of course, the few who were able to escape were quite lucky. The abolitionist movements that started in these areas were all due because of the white male who made so many his slave. In fact, this book never fails to mention just how many were murdered because they didn't do the job that was next to impossible.

This book left me speechless. Although I thought that it was a little too young for my age, it still blew my mind. Sugar is something that many just look over, but Aronson and Budhos really put it into perspective. They go into such well written detail to help the reader picture and understand how awful the sugar industry started out. Without accidentally stumbling upon this book, I would've never even thought about reading a book with 'sugar' in the title. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who is willing to read it. It's not too gory, but it still walks you through the horrors. I believe that if people were to read this book, their view on what they think sugar started out with, would completely change. ( )