Page 70 - BBC History - September 2017

Books / Reviews

COMING SOON…
“Next issue, we’ll be talking to Anne Applebaum about Red Famine,
her new account of the causes and consequences of the devastating
1932!33 famine in Ukraine. Plus, as always, we’ll have expert reviews
of the pick of the latest history titles”
Matt Elton, reviews editor

in Hawaii, and Australians to import On the warpath
South Sea islanders to their tropical
regions. The story of sugar, then, is not MILES RUSSELL enjoys a richly descriptive work following
just one of changing diets and expand-
ing waistlines, but also one of mass Caesar’s path to victory over the Gauls
migrations – both forced and volun-
tary, both familiar and unfamiliar. Caesar’s Footprints: During the seven-year campaign of
Just as the story of sugar in the 18th Journeys to Roman Gaul butchery, Caesar documented events in a
and 19th centuries is inevitably by Bijan Omrani series of dispatches from the frontline.
dominated by the phenomenon of Written in the third person (a literary
Head of Zeus, 400 pages, £25
Atlantic slavery, sugar’s story in the masterstroke, making the work appear
20th and 21st centuries can only be told One of Caesar’s less ego centric), the Gallic Wars provide a
with reference to the development of ‘greatest’ achievements unique perspective on the populations of
American agri-business and the was the conquest of Gaul, Germany and Britain.
postwar rise of the giant food corpora- Gaul, successfully Using Caesar’s account as a source,
tions, most notably the Coca-Cola overcoming the tribes many have tried to trace the war on the
Company. This, as Walvin reveals, is that inhabited an area ground, most notably Emperor Napo-
because the soft drinks and confection- spanning much of leon III (reigned 1852–70) who success-
western Europe. fully located a number of battlefields. To
Between 58 and 52 BC, Caesar’s war his credit, Bijan Omrani, the latest to
The modern anti- against the barbarians at Rome’s follow in Caesar’s footsteps, does not try
sugar movement north-western frontier caused the deaths to excuse the general’s actions nor gloss
of more than a million innocent men,
over his brutality. Although marketed as
echoes the sugar women and children, many more being a personal journey, this is so much more
enslaved in the process. than a glossy retelling of the campaign
boycott of the early At the end of it all, Gaul became one – or, indeed, a simple travelogue.
19th century of the most thoroughly Roman of all Omrani’s writing crackles from start
European provinces – there being little to finish, providing a wealth of detail,
of the indigenous population left with both then and now. Expertly weaving
ery industries grew to become the the will to resist. the primary source with his own
modern-day delivery system for the Caesar’s war was nothing more than a experiences, Omrani explores the
sugar-laden diets that have led to sugar well-organised slaughter, conducted topography, archaeology, history and
becoming a pariah crop. primarily to advance his own rather culture of the land, the Caesarean war
The modern anti-sugar movement warped political agenda. By the time that and its aftermath. From Marseilles
that is demanding better labelling and the last embers of Gallic resistance were where “water, boats and masts seem to
the reduction of sugar in foods and being stamped out, Caesar had become vaporise in the heat, suspended in a haze
drinks marketed at children, strangely an immensely powerful man, rich from of ochre and peach dust above the grand
echoes the sugar boycott that was the spoils of war and with his own loyal, frontages measuring the length of the
launched by the abolitionists in the battle-hardened force of heavily armed, quay”, to Deal where “the slate heavy air
early 19th century, for moral rather well-paid psychopaths. With such is relieved by bright blue tubs and
than health reasons. backing, he could finally set his eyes on tarpaulins, stacked with green crates, the
There are passages in Walvin’s latter the ultimate prize: Rome herself. winding of ropes and nets and waving
chapters that read like an account of ensigns”, Omrani is
the spread of a narcotic, which is not Roman never less than an
far from the point. The sugar industry soldiers entertaining and
fighting
stands today where the tobacco vividly descriptive guide.
Gauls in a
corporations stood in the 1960s, This is a hugely enjoyable,
detail from
accused of knowingly exacerbating a a c4 BC urn informative and evocative
global health crisis and a vast obesity journey through a turning
epidemic. This is just the latest moral point in world history.
crisis faced by the purveyors of the
sweet stuff. Miles Russell is the author
of Arthur and the Kings of
David Olusoga is a historian, writer and Britain: The Historical
broadcaster. His programmes include Truth Behind the Myths BRIDGEMAN
BBC Two’s Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners (Amberley, 2017)

70 BBC History Magazine