American Sugar Kingdom
American Sugar Kingdom

Author: César J. Ayala

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2009-11-15

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0807867977

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Engaging conventional arguments that the persistence of plantations is the cause of economic underdevelopment in the Caribbean, this book focuses on the discontinuities in the development of plantation economies in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic in the early twentieth century. Cesar Ayala analyzes and compares the explosive growth of sugar production in the three nations following the War of 1898--when the U.S. acquired Cuba and Puerto Rico--to show how closely the development of the Spanish Caribbean's modern economic and social class systems is linked to the history of the U.S. sugar industry during its greatest period of expansion and consolidation. Ayala examines patterns of investment and principal groups of investors, interactions between U.S. capitalists and native planters, contrasts between new and old regions of sugar monoculture, the historical formation of the working class on sugar plantations, and patterns of labor migration. In contrast to most studies of the Spanish Caribbean, which focus on only one country, his account places the history of U.S. colonialism in the region, and the history of plantation agriculture across the region, in comparative perspective.

Sweetness and Power
Sweetness and Power

Author: Sidney W. Mintz

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1986-08-05

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1101666641

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A fascinating persuasive history of how sugar has shaped the world, from European colonies to our modern diets In this eye-opening study, Sidney Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life, and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar, and reveals how closely interwoven are sugar's origins as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies with is use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new industrial proletariat. Finally, he considers how sugar has altered work patterns, eating habits, and our diet in modern times. "Like sugar, Mintz is persuasive, and his detailed history is a real treat." -San Francisco Chronicle

Worker in the Cane
Worker in the Cane

Author: Sidney Wilfred Mintz

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1974

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780393007312

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Worker in the Cane is both a profound social document and a moving spiritual testimony. Don Taso portrays his harsh childhood, his courtship and early marriage, his grim struggle to provide for his family. He tells of his radical political beliefs and union activity during the Depression and describes his hardships when he was blacklisted because of his outspoken convictions. Embittered by his continuing poverty and by a serious illness, he undergoes a dramatic cure and becomes converted to a Protestant revivalist sect. In the concluding chapters the author interprets Don Taso's experience in the light of the changing patterns of life in rural Puerto Rico. This is the absorbing story of Don Taso, a Puerto Rican sugar cane worker, and of his family and the village in which he lives. Told largely in his own words, it is a vivid account of the drastic changes taking place in Puerto Rico, as he sees them.

Sugarlandia Revisited
Sugarlandia Revisited

Author: Ulbe Bosma

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9781845453169

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Sugar was the single most valuable bulk commodity traded internationally before oil became the world's prime resource. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, cane sugar production was pre-eminent in the Atlantic Islands, the Caribbean, and Brazil. Subsequently, cane sugar industries in the Americas were transformed by a fusion of new and old forces of production, as the international sugar economy incorporated production areas in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. Sugar's global economic importance and its intimate relationship with colonialism offer an important context for probing the nature of colonial societies. This book questions some major assumptions about the nexus between sugar production and colonial societies in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia, especially in the second (post-1800) colonial era.

Economic and Social Conditions in Puerto Rico
Economic and Social Conditions in Puerto Rico

Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs

Publisher:

Published: 1943

Total Pages: 706

ISBN-13:

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Feb. 10 and 11 hearings were held in Mayaguez, PR; Feb. 12 hearing was held in Ponce, PR; Feb. 13, 15-17, and 19 hearings were held in San Juan, PR. Appendix includes Government documents, organization reports, correspondence, and statistics (p. 299-568).