70 pages • 2 hours read
Marc Aronson, Marina BudhosSugar Changed the World
Nonfiction | Book | YA | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
EssayChapter Summaries & Analyses
Essay Summary: “How We Researched and Wrote This Book”
Aronson and Budhos talk about the process of writing the book and “the really large historical themes that came up in our research” (127). Unlike the book itself, this section is not intended for young readers. However, they also add that they believe that these questions about research might be of interest to middle and high school students.
Aronson and Budhos identify the key questions they raise in Sugar Changed the World as, “How were sugar and slavery related to the question of freedom?” (127) and “How does a clear look at sugar and slavery change how we see ideas of freedom and the invention of new kinds of work and machinery?” (128). Also, they write that a main goal of the book was to take a broader view of historical issues. They sought to link together the story of sugar, the history of slavery and abolitionism, the American, French, and Haiti revolutions, and industrialization. In addition, they wanted to bring together African, European, Indian, and American history. Further, they wanted to try to “understand the deepest, most basic drives of human behavior” (128).
Next, Aronson and Budhos describe the process of writing the book. They drew on second works, meaning scholarly writings on history. They then turned to primary sources such as archival materials and transcripts of interviews. They stress that they began with books, then turned to online research: “We wanted the Internet to be a tool guided by our knowledge and interests, not a flood of stuff we needed to sort through” (129). Finally, they divided their process between them. Aronson did most of the research and wrote a rough draft, while Budhos edited the text and included her own research on Indian indentured servants. Then they revised the text again to make sure the narrative had a consistent voice.
Essay Analysis
The essay considers two main questions: what Aronson and Budhos tried to achieve with Sugar Changed the World in terms of history, and how they researched and wrote the book. If their approach to history could be summarized in one word, it would be “comprehensive.” They argue for treating geographic regions (the Americas, Africa, Europe) and historical themes (slavery, industrialization, workers’ rights) in a way that looks at the ties between them.
When discussing how they approached the project, Aronson and Budhos describe beginning with published secondary sources. Next, they approached primary or documentary sources. They stress that they began with secondary sources, not with the Internet, because “we saw no reason to begin by being overwhelmed and confused” (129). Further, secondary sources provided them with an understanding of the “larger narrative” (129), making it easier for them to find where the primary sources would best fit. In other words, they argue that secondary sources provide a broad overview of the topic, which is useful when later researching primary sources and Internet resources.
