Sugar Trade

Growing global interdependence made the 1970s and 1980s a volatile period in the sugar trade during a time when Caribbean countries were economically dependent on their sugar exports. This book focuses on the evolution of the U.S.--Caribbean Basin trade and its impact on political relations between the countries. The book shows how the sugar trade was not driven by laws of supply and demand, but by various political agendas. Economic protectionism, government subsidies for inefficient elements of the sugar industry, as well as corruption and mismanagement have all played a role in the sugar trade. By providing an in-depth look at the development of current policies in the sugar trade, this book offers the needed background for making informed decisions on policy questions.

Focusing on the organization of production and labor use in the Caribbean's second largest sugar industry, this work depicts the reality of the Dominican sugar economy of the 1980s. It describes the progressive replacement of national labor by foreign workers. Comparing the three distinct sugar corporations, it concludes that all three exploited foreign labor. Refuting modern slavery charges through social science theory and extensive field research, this study suggests these charges resulted from superficial analyses of symbols. In depth analyses display one of the 20th century's most extensive forms of super exploitation.

A study of the powerful impact that sugar had on U.S.-Dominican relations as the primary vehicle of reciprocal manipulation from 1958 to 1962, Sugar and Power examines the development of the sugar industry in the Dominican Republic. Hall uncovers new evidence that supports the belief that U.S.-Latin American relations during this period were frequently a two-way street, with the United States reacting to Latin American initiatives just as frequently as Latin Americans responded to American initiatives. Both Eisenhower and Kennedy used sugar quota legislation as a foreign policy tool. At the same time, the Trujillo regime played upon Washington's fear of communism in response to the Cuban revolution to obtain an expanded sugar quota.

Sugar and Slaves presents a vivid portrait of English life in the Caribbean more than three centuries ago. Dunn examines sugar production techniques, the vicious character of the slave trade, the problems of adapting English ways to the tropics, and the appalling mortality rates for both blacks and whites that made these colonies the richest, but in human terms the least successful, in English America.

This is the first study, for any region of colonial or nineteenth-century Brazil, to integrate research on the production and marketing of basic foodstuffs for local needs into an investigation of slavery and export agriculture. It thus forges a link between what have until now been two separate strands of scholarship in the field of Brazilian history, opening new perspectives for understanding how, during more than three centuries, slavery, plantations, and export agriculture shaped social and economic life in Brazil.

This book examines the social-economic history of the region known as the Reconcavo in the province (now state) of Bahia in Northeastern Brazil. In the early nineteenth century, the Reconcavo ranked as one of the oldest and most important slaveholding regions in the Americas and, within Brazil, as a major center of sugar and tobacco production. A Bahian Counterpoint shows that, although often dismissed as peripheral or marginal activities in the literature on Brazil, the production and marketing of foodstuffs for internal consumption played a crucial role in the development of the Reconcavo's slave-based export economy.

The book also systematically compares the use of slave labor, landholding, and agricultural practices in the production of the Reconcavo's three main crops: sugar, tobacco, and cassava. The comparison reveals an agrarian economy where, relying on slave labor, great planters and small farmers alike adapted land use and agricultural practices not only to specific crop requirements, but also to the demands of both overseas and local markets. The adaptations they made created a complex and varied social landscape in a region long thought to be dominatedalmost exclusively by large plantations. The comparison further reveals striking contrasts between sugar and tobacco. Neither merely another example of export monoculture nor strictly a peasant activity, tobacco farming in the

Though Cuba was among the first countries in the world to utilize rail transport, the history of its railroads has been little studied. This English translation of the prize-winning Caminos para el azucar traces the story of railroads in Cuba from their introduction in the nineteenth century through the 1959 Revolution.

More broadly, the book uses the development of the Cuban rail transport system to provide a fascinating perspective on Cuban history, particularly the story of its predominant agro-industry, sugar. While railroads facilitated the sugar industry's rapid growth after 1837, the authors argue, sugar interests determined where railroads would be built and who would benefit from them. Zanetti and Garcia explore the implications of this symbiotic relationship for the technological development of the railroads, the economic evolution of Cuba, and the lives of the railroad workers.

As this work shows, the economic benefits that accompanied the rise of railroads in Europe and the UnitedStates were not repeated in Cuba. Sugar and Railroads provides a poignant demonstration of the fact that technological progress alone is far from sufficient for development.