Review by Choice Review
Parker (Panama Fever, 2009) describes the sugar barons of the British West Indies from the time of European settlement in the 17th century to the abolition of slavery in the 19th. His sources, published and archival, provide a wealth of information on the several islands and their principal interconnected families, from the Draxes of Barbados to the Beckfords of Jamaica and the Codringtons of Antigua. The result is a rich narrative that interweaves family histories with the economics of sugar, the dynamics of Britain's Atlantic empire in peace and war, and most poignantly the horrendous brutalities of these European and American slave owners. As few European consumers by the end of the Stuart age could live without American sugar, few among the great planter families could resist what the economy of addiction offered them: power and leisure deriving from wealth that was--for a time and for some--beyond that of any other private individuals in the Western world. Parker focuses on these extraordinary benefits for the few, but without ignoring the horrific costs to the many. Useful illustrations and bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. G. F. Steckley Knox College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Parker's history of several English-speaking Caribbean islands from about 1630 to 1830 unfolds amid motifs of riches and miseries. Relating events through the rising of several family dynasties, Parker recounts how sugar production developed on Barbados, Antigua, and Jamaica. James Drax's success on Barbados sweetened the English appetite for expanding the industry to the other isles. Wealthy as planters could become, staggering mortality rates denied most settlers much pleasure, while disaffection by the labor force, at first indentured whites, later enslaved blacks, provoked ruthless rule by tiny planter elites. In a narrative studded with slave conspiracies, actual revolts, and brutal suppressions, Parker contrasts resistance and terror to the luxurious lifestyle a surviving planter could indulge. Visitors whom Parker quotes observed that the Caribbean English were semi-perpetual drinkers and fornicators, given added incentive for sybaritic fatalism by regular wars with the Dutch, the Spanish, and the French.The party couldn't last. Economic decline, the dissipation of fortunes, and the British abolition of slavery conclude this minutely detailed portrait of one corner of Britain's constantly illuminated empire.--Taylor, Gilber. Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Tiny Caribbean islands generate outsized wealth, influence, and cruelty in this gripping history of the British West Indies. Historian Parker (Panama Fever) recounts the heyday of the planters of Barbados, Jamaica, and the Leeward Islands who made sugarcane cultivation into a fabulously profitable agribusiness from the 17th to 19th centuries. The riches their plantations generated made them imperial power brokers, provoked wars-in settling the French and Indian War, France gave up Canada to regain the minute sugar island of Guadeloupe-and sparked a culinary revolution. But Britain's glittering West Indian colonies were also some of history's most appalling societies, the author notes. A tiny minority of whites worked the islands' black slave laborers to death and meted out brutality and violence-Parker's accounts of atrocities inflicted on slaves are extremely disturbing-at the slightest disobedience. This is a rousing, fluently written narrative history, full of color, dash, and forceful personalities, but it's also a subtle social portrait of plantation life and governance: its live fast, die young ethos as Europeans dropped like flies from tropical diseases. Parker's vivid evocation of the elite evokes the queasy moral rot beneath la dolce vita. Photos. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Parker (Panama Fever) traces the social, political, and economic history of the sugar trade in the British West Indies from the 17th to the 19th centuries through the stories of several families who ran enormous plantations with indentured and slave labor and amassed great wealth. Along with harrowing tales of the extreme hazards of harvesting sugarcane, the author also conjures incongruous images of the conspicuous consumption by the landowners who insisted on wearing full European wardrobes (wool coats and wigs) in tropical climates. In this concise volume, Parker manages to cover disease, race relations, slave rebellions, imperial rivalry, and more, leaving the reader impressed by his command of the sources-many of which are letters and diaries of the plantation owners and their visitors-and the comprehensiveness of the treatment. VERDICT Successful both as a scholarly introduction to the topic and as an entertaining narrative, this is recommended for readers of any kind of history. (Illustrations not seen.)-Megan Hahn Fraser, Univ. of California, Los Angeles, Lib. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A rich, multifaceted account of the greed and slavery bolstering the rise of England's mercantile empire.Considering the myriad international influences that vied for predominance in the West Indies, London-based author Parker (Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time-- the Building of the Panama Canal, 2008, etc.) wisely focuses on the pioneer British dynasties that built the sugar empires on Barbados and the English Leeward islands, such as the related Drax and Codrington clans, and later on Jamaica, the Beckfords. Sugar production was not initially an English enterprisefrom New Guinea to India, Persia to North Africa, sugar-cane cultivation was carried ever westward by the Arabs, Spanish and especially the Portuguese, the last who "put to cane" the islands of Madeira, Principe and the vast colony of Brazil to corner the sugar market by the early 17th century. The enterprising Dutch elbowed into Barbados by the 1640s, creating the ideal conditions whereby James Drax, an Anglican immigrant, would learn by trial and error how to coax the fabulous new crop in the rich soil. Barbados became a magnet for the dumping of indentured servants, dissidents and the disaffected during the reign of Charles I, followed by refugees from the English Civil War, many of whom perished by ill treatment and disease within three years of arriving. However, sugar production was labor-intensive, and blacks from West Africaalready long established as labor within Portuguese possessionswere imported, apparently hardier and more tractable than the native Caribs. Parker delves skillfully into the important effects of the English Civil War, such as the passage of the Navigation Act of 1651, which created a formal system of mercantilism to benefit England's home vessels and ports; even Oliver Cromwell masterminded a "western design" into Hispaniola and Jamaica, to less-than-successful effect. Still, the English dug in, and their treatment of slaves to wring profits from vast plantations was predictably harsh and deplorable.Parker achieves admirable clarity and focus in this sprawling, ugly, complicated story of the sugar revolution.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
