A Tall History of Sugar | Book Review | Curdella Forbes | 2019

A Tall History of Sugar book — A Review

At first, sugar feels like one of the least threatening things in the world. It dissolves easily. It sweetens quietly. It rarely asks to be examined. Yet, as a book, A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes insists that we look again — and then keep looking, even when the picture becomes uncomfortable.

This is not a book that tries to win the reader over quickly. In fact, it does very little hand-holding at all. Instead, Forbes allows history to settle slowly, almost reluctantly, into the reading experience. Over time, the realization becomes unavoidable: sugar was never innocent. It was efficient. And efficiency, as this book shows, often comes at a brutal human cost.

What This Book Is About (Without Giving Too Much Away)

Before diving deeper, it helps to be clear about what A Tall History of Sugar actually sets out to do.

The book examines the long and damaging role sugar played in the Caribbean — economically, socially, and emotionally. Through reflections shaped by sugar trade history, Forbes explores how Caribbean sugar plantations and the plantation economy supported colonial expansion and sustained slavery. However, the book does not stop at the past. Instead, it keeps returning to what followed: fractured families, disrupted identities, and the lingering weight of inheritance.

Importantly, this is not a conventional historical novel, nor is it a straight history book. It sits somewhere in between. The focus is less on events and more on aftermath — on how systems leave traces that survive long after they formally end.

Sugar as a System That Outlived Its Era

One of the book’s strongest choices is its refusal to treat sugar as a symbol. Forbes treats sugar as infrastructure — something that organized land, labor, and power.

By grounding her narrative in sugar trade history, she shows how sugar became central to colonial exploitation. Over time, sugar production demanded scale, and scale demanded systems that could absorb violence without questioning it. As a result, exploitation became routine rather than exceptional.

Because of this, as a book, A Tall History of Sugar belongs comfortably among historical fiction books about slavery, colonialism, and the legacy of slavery. Yet it does not behave like many books in that space. Instead of focusing on dramatic moments, Forbes concentrates on repetition — on how harm becomes normalized when it serves economic logic.

That choice may not immediately satisfy readers expecting narrative momentum. However, it proves quietly devastating.

A Writing Style That Holds Back on Purpose

Forbes writes with restraint, and that restraint matters.

At first, the prose can feel distant. Sentences arrive calmly. Observations unfold without emotional cues. However, over time, it becomes clear that this distance is deliberate. The plantation economy did not rely on constant spectacle; it relied on order. Pain functioned best when it became ordinary.

Many books about slavery and colonialism guide the reader’s emotions carefully. This one does not. Instead, emotion accumulates indirectly. The discomfort creeps in through repetition, through what is stated plainly and left unresolved.

As a result, the book lingers. Not because it shocks, but because it refuses to provide relief.

Identity, Family History, and the Damage Done by Silence

Although A Tall History of Sugar operates on a broad historical canvas, its emotional center remains personal. Forbes returns repeatedly to questions of identity, family history, and what gets passed down — often without words.

Caribbean slavery fractured families in ways that cannot be neatly repaired. Records disappeared. Names vanished. Stories were interrupted or never told. Over time, those absences shaped how people understood themselves and their place in the world.

This is where the book aligns most clearly with works about identity, family history, and generational trauma shaped by slavery. Yet Forbes avoids dramatizing that trauma. Instead, she shows how it settles into daily life — into habits, silences, and assumptions that feel normal precisely because they have been inherited.

History Without the Comfort of Distance

Some readers approach books about slavery and colonialism hoping for moral clarity and closure. As a book, A Tall History of Sugar offers neither.

By repeatedly returning to the transatlantic slave trade and Caribbean slavery, Forbes insists that history does not end neatly. Systems change names. Structures adapt. However, the logic that once justified exploitation often survives.

What makes this approach unsettling is its subtlety. Forbes does not draw direct comparisons or force contemporary parallels. Instead, she trusts the reader to recognize how colonial exploitation shaped ways of thinking — about labor, value, and disposability.

As a result, the book feels relevant without ever announcing itself as such.

The Plantation Economy and Its Lingering Reach

Forbes spends considerable time examining Caribbean sugar plantations as engineered systems. These were not chaotic spaces. They were organized environments designed for efficiency, predictability, and output.

Within the plantation economy, human lives became variables. Over time, this logic reshaped everything it touched — social structures, family dynamics, even language. Exploitation no longer required constant enforcement; it sustained itself through routine.

Here, the book makes one of its most uncomfortable points. Systems do not need cruelty to function. They only need compliance and repetition. Forbes never states this outright, yet the implication becomes impossible to ignore.

Living With the Legacy of Slavery

Perhaps the hardest thing about A Tall History of Sugar is its refusal to resolve the past.

The legacy of slavery, as Forbes presents it, does not fade with time. It lingers unevenly — in land ownership, in opportunity, in silence. Some inherit wealth. Others inherit absence.

Understanding history, the book suggests, does not automatically heal it. Awareness matters, certainly. Yet awareness alone cannot undo centuries of damage. That recognition gives the book its uneasy power.

This lack of closure may frustrate some readers. Still, it feels honest. History rarely offers tidy conclusions, and Forbes refuses to pretend otherwise.

Who This Book Will Speak To

This is not a book for casual reading. It requires attention and patience. Readers who prefer fast-paced narratives may struggle, especially at first.

However, readers drawn to historical fiction books about slavery, colonialism, and the legacy of slavery will likely appreciate its seriousness. Likewise, those interested in how identity forms under historical pressure — how family histories carry unspoken weight — will find much to reflect on here.

Ultimately, as a book, A Tall History of Sugar does not try to entertain. It tries to reckon. And in doing so, it leaves a lasting mark.

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