Books with title The Biography of Sugar

This work is for ages 8-14. What was the world like before sugar? Find out how the human desire for sweets made a tropical grass into a valuable commodity around the world. With the use of colourful images and maps, The Biography of Sugar details how sugar grows, which countries produce it, and the sour history of slavery and exploitation that surrounded its early production. Other topics include: What is a commodity?; sources of sugar and where they are grown; the history of sugar and the sugar trade, from the ancient world, to medieval Europe, to the Caribbean; slavery and sugar plantations; the production and manufacture of sugar; environmental concerns of modern sugar cultivation; uses of sugar, from sweetening, to food preservation, to medicine; the development of sugar substitutes.

This work is for ages 8-14. Empires were made from the growth and sale of spices and the age of discovery was launched in pursuit of them. Exciting text and historic images explain to children how spices were used to cure the sick, flavour foods, and make perfume. Other topics include: What is a commodity?; What is a spice?; where spices originated and where they are grown today; how different spices are harvested, manufactured, and processed; the historical and modern spice trades; ancient peoples and how they used spices, from flavouring and preserving their foods, to the mummification of bodies!; how the Crusades changed European tastes; how the spice trade encouraged explorers and colonies; slavery and the spice trade.

This work is for ages 8-14. Rice is one of the world's most important cereal crops. From wild plants in Asia and Africa, to its cultivation by ancient peoples 8,000 peoples years ago, rice has helped to shape the course of history. Children will learn how rice is grown, harvested, processed and sold. Clear, descriptive images show how rice is a vital food crop for millions of people world-wide.

This book is suitable for readers of ages 8-14. From its origins in China through to the development of major medieval cities as centres of its production, silk has for centuries been highly valued and considered among the most important of trade goods. Vibrant photographs and text also tell how silk is made organically by silkworms and manufactured by humans.