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Sugar in the blood: a family's story of slavery and empire

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Pub. Date:
2013
Language:
English
Description
In the late 1630s, lured by the promise of the New World, Andrea Stuart’s earliest known maternal ancestor, George Ashby, set sail from England to settle in Barbados. He fell into the life of a sugar plantation owner by mere chance, but by the time he harvested his first crop, a revolution was fully under way: the farming of sugar cane, and the swiftly increasing demands for sugar worldwide, would not only lift George Ashby from abject poverty and shape the lives of his descendants, but it would also bind together ambitious white entrepreneurs and enslaved black workers in a strangling embrace. Stuart uses her own family story—from the seventeenth century through the present—as the pivot for this epic tale of migration, settlement, survival, slavery and the making of the Americas.
As it grew, the sugar trade enriched Europe as never before, financing the Industrial Revolution and fuelling the Enlightenment. And, as well, it became the basis of many economies in South America, played an important part in the evolution of the United States as a world power and transformed the Caribbean into an archipelago of riches. But this sweet and hugely profitable trade—“white gold,” as it was known—had profoundly less palatable consequences in its precipitation of the enslavement of Africans to work the fields on the islands and, ultimately, throughout the American continents. Interspersing the tectonic shifts of colonial history with her family’s experience, Stuart explores the interconnected themes of settlement, sugar and slavery with extraordinary subtlety and sensitivity. In examining how these forces shaped her own family—its genealogy, intimate relationships, circumstances of birth, varying hues of skin—she illuminates how her family, among millions of others like it, in turn transformed the society in which they lived, and how that interchange continues to this day. Shifting between personal and global history, Stuart gives us a deepened understanding of the connections between continents, between black and white, between men and women, between the free and the enslaved. It is a story brought to life with riveting and unparalleled immediacy, a story of fundamental importance to the making of our world.
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ISBN:
9780307272836
9780307961150
9781452692661
9780307474544
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Grouping Information

Grouped Work IDd69d04f9-77ae-c766-7cf4-44ef621d51d1
Grouping Titlesugar in the blood a familys story of slavery and empire
Grouping Authorandrea stuart
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2024-03-28 02:11:39AM
Last Indexed2024-03-27 08:51:39AM

Solr Fields

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auth_author2
Pitts, Lisa Reneé
author
Stuart, Andrea
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Pitts, Lisa Reneé,reader
hoopla digital
author_display
Stuart, Andrea
available_at_catalog
Martin Luther King Jr.
detailed_location_catalog
Arcade
Central
Martin Luther King, Jr. African American Collection
display_description
In the late 1630s, lured by the promise of the New World, Andrea Stuart’s earliest known maternal ancestor, George Ashby, set sail from England to settle in Barbados. He fell into the life of a sugar plantation owner by mere chance, but by the time he harvested his first crop, a revolution was fully under way: the farming of sugar cane, and the swiftly increasing demands for sugar worldwide, would not only lift George Ashby from abject poverty and shape the lives of his descendants, but it would also bind together ambitious white entrepreneurs and enslaved black workers in a strangling embrace. Stuart uses her own family story—from the seventeenth century through the present—as the pivot for this epic tale of migration, settlement, survival, slavery and the making of the Americas.
As it grew, the sugar trade enriched Europe as never before, financing the Industrial Revolution and fuelling the Enlightenment. And, as well, it became the basis of many economies in South America, played an important part in the evolution of the United States as a world power and transformed the Caribbean into an archipelago of riches. But this sweet and hugely profitable trade—“white gold,” as it was known—had profoundly less palatable consequences in its precipitation of the enslavement of Africans to work the fields on the islands and, ultimately, throughout the American continents. Interspersing the tectonic shifts of colonial history with her family’s experience, Stuart explores the interconnected themes of settlement, sugar and slavery with extraordinary subtlety and sensitivity. In examining how these forces shaped her own family—its genealogy, intimate relationships, circumstances of birth, varying hues of skin—she illuminates how her family, among millions of others like it, in turn transformed the society in which they lived, and how that interchange continues to this day. Shifting between personal and global history, Stuart gives us a deepened understanding of the connections between continents, between black and white, between men and women, between the free and the enslaved. It is a story brought to life with riveting and unparalleled immediacy, a story of fundamental importance to the making of our world.
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Book
eAudiobook
eBook
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Audio Books
Books
eBook
id
d69d04f9-77ae-c766-7cf4-44ef621d51d1
isbn
9780307272836
9780307474544
9780307961150
9781452692661
itype_catalog
Adult Book Non-Fiction
last_indexed
2024-03-27T15:51:39.664Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
local_callnumber_catalog
338.1736 S929zs 2013
338.1736 S929zs2 2013
owning_library_catalog
Sacramento Public Library
owning_location_catalog
Arcade
Central
Martin Luther King Jr.
primary_isbn
9780307272836
publishDate
2013
publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Tantor Media, Inc
Vintage Books, a division of Random House
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Agricultural industries
Autobiography
Barbados -- History
Biography
Ethnology
History
Slavery -- Barbados -- History
Social sciences
Stuart family
Sugar trade -- Barbados -- History
Sugarcane industry -- Barbados -- History
West Indies
title_display
Sugar in the blood : a family's story of slavery and empire
title_full
Sugar in the Blood : a family's story of slavery and empire [electronic resource] / Andrea Stuart
Sugar in the Blood A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire
Sugar in the blood : a family's story of slavery and empire / Andrea Stuart
title_short
Sugar in the blood
title_sub
a family's story of slavery and empire
topic_facet
Agricultural industries
Autobiography
Biography
Biography & Autobiography
Ethnology
History
Multi-Cultural
Nonfiction
Slavery
Social sciences
Stuart family
Sugar trade
Sugarcane industry

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