Luckily, the story of sugar is about more than sugar refining. It is
a sprawling tale that covers 9000 years, about 150 countries that
produce beet or cane sugar, and a product that has influenced all
our lives. In telling this story of many threads, the choices I have
made from among the many issues help to show how sugar has
been involved in world history, although I do not suggest that
sugar caused the world to be as it is today. Rather, the human
greed, frailty and misjudgment that have in part shaped our
world have also operated around the profits to be made, one way
and another, from sugar. If sugar had not been available, some
other valuable item would have been squabbled over in a similar
fashion.