Sugar Changed the World

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay. 

Scaffolded/Short-Answer Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the below bulleted outlines. Cite details from the book over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Choose one of the exploited or marginalized people that Budhos and Aronson discuss as an individual and explain how, despite circumstances, this person still managed to have an impact on history.

• Who is the person, and what impact did they have on history? (topic sentence)
• What details from this person’s life do the authors offer to show how the person was exploited or marginalized?
• What details from this person’s life and from history do the authors offer to show that this person had an impact on history?
• Finally, discuss in your concluding sentence or sentences how this story demonstrates that History is Personal.

2. Compare and contrast the lives of enslaved people on sugar plantations with the lives of indentured servants on sugar plantations.

• What is similar, and what is different, about the lives that these two kinds of laborers had? (topic sentence)
• What evidence in the text shows how their lives were different?
• What evidence in the text shows how their lives were similar?
• Finally, explain in your concluding sentence or sentences how comparing and contrasting the lives of these two types of laborers demonstrates The Complexity of History.

3. How does the history of the sugar industry illustrate the struggle between human rights and property rights in Western history?

• What does the history of the sugar industry demonstrate about changing values around human rights versus property rights? (topic sentence)
• What are two or three examples of human rights that were ignored during the rise of the sugar industry?
• How did these human rights eventually become more valued?
• Finally, discuss in your concluding sentence or sentences what this demonstrates about how Positivity Can Come out of Negativity.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. In order to demonstrate that History is Personal, the authors of Sugar Changed the World use their own families’ relationships with the sugar industry as a kind of “frame'' for their discussion of the industry’s history. Write an essay that explains their rhetorical purpose in including details of their families’ histories, and then evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy. Where do the authors mention their own family history? How much information do they give? How significant are their connections to the sugar industry? Given that the events in this book take place over hundreds of years, in an industry that had a massive impact on the global economy, how likely is it that most people living today had an ancestor—or many ancestors—involved in some aspect of the sugar industry? Why do you suppose that Aronson and Budhos wanted to demonstrate that History is Personal? Did their discussion of their family histories make a convincing case for this idea, or not?

2. Choose one of the ways in which Budhos and Aronson claim that the brutal history of the sugar industry gave rise to something positive. Write an essay that traces this development: What unfortunate aspect of the sugar industry was responsible for this development? How did it come about? Why was this development ultimately positive? Finally, explain how this particular example supports the book’s contention that Positivity Can Come out of Negativity.

3. One of the main points that Aronson and Budhos want to make in this text is that History is More Complex than it is often portrayed as being. As a part of this argument, they try to demonstrate how interconnected the world has been throughout history. Write an essay that traces this motif in Sugar Changed the World. When do the authors introduce this idea? What are some of their key examples? How does this motif support the idea of History’s Complexity?