------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------
Published by EH.NET (June 2006)
Frederick H. Smith, _Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History_.
Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2006. xvi + 340 pp. $60
(cloth), ISBN: 0-8130-2867-1.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Russell R. Menard, Department of History,
University of Minnesota.
Frederick H. Smith, an anthropologist at the College of William and
Mary, has written the most important study of the Caribbean rum
industry since John McCusker's masterful 1970 Ph. D. dissertation
_Rum and the American Revolution_. Smith combines economic history
and anthropology in the tradition of Sidney Mintz. Indeed, _Caribbean
Rum_ will surely remind readers of Mintz's _Sweetness and Power_
(1985) for its focus on a commodity and skillful blending of economic
analysis and ethnography. Smith goes beyond McCusker by tracking
rum's history into the twenty-first century and by exploring the
cultural dimensions of rum consumption in the Caribbean. Smith notes
that rum is not the inevitable by-product of sugar, as early
seventeenth-century planters were little interested in it. He then
uses a wide range of sources, drawing on manuscripts in several
archives, numerous published items, and the evidence of historical
archaeology to trace rum's origins in the desires of Europeans and
Africans to recreate the drinking patterns they had left behind in
the Old World. He then goes on to trace rum's transformation from a
small colonial activity, concerned largely to supply internal demand,
to a major export traded throughout the Atlantic World and finally to
a multi-billion dollar industry controlled by multinational
corporations. This largely economic history is paired with a close
reading of rum's changing role in Caribbean culture and society.
Smith's analysis of differing levels of rum consumption over time and
of variations in drinking patterns among several Caribbean islands is
especially successful. It is a fascinating story, and Smith tells it
well.
While economic historians will find Smith's contribution useful,
those interested in the Caribbean economy will still want to consult
McCusker to understand how rum production functioned within the
context of the Caribbean sugar industry. Smith does an excellent job
of revealing productivity gains within rum production. Indeed, his
analysis of the experiments of planters with methods of rum making
puts yet another nail in the coffin of those who would argue that
Caribbean planters were a class of seigneurs with no interest in
their bottom line. As Smith's study shows, they were willing to
experiment and take risks in order to raise profits. However, Smith
is less successful in situating rum within the struggles of sugar
planters to improve the productivity of their plantations in order to
maintain profit levels in the face of falling sugar prices and rising
costs. For that story one must turn to McCusker. On the whole, Smith
's thoroughly researched and nicely written analysis of rum
consumption is persuasive. He is particularly good in uncovering the
ways in which African experience with alcoholic drink shaped the use
of rum by slaves in the Caribbean. While I found most of Smith's
conclusions in this area, persuasive, he does on occasion -- as with
the notion of "alcoholic maroonage" (p. 118) step off the deep end.
In sum, _Caribbean Rum_ is a welcome addition to the growing
literature on the early Caribbean economy and a must read for all
serious students of the early modern Atlantic World.
Russell R. Menard is Professor of History at the University of
Minnesota. His most recent book is _Sweet Negotiations: Sugar,
Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados_
(Charlottesville, 2006). He is currently working on _Plantation
Empire: Slavery and Plantation Agriculture in the Making of Britain's
Empire in America_.
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Published by EH.Net (June 2006). All EH.Net reviews are archived at
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