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Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History
"The most significant contribution to the history of Caribbean rum since John McCusker's Rum and the American Revolution. . . . It adds significantly to McCusker’s work by analyzing the Caribbean environment in greater depth and by bringing the story forward by two centuries."--Anthony P. Maingot, Florida International University Christopher Columbus brought sugarcane to the New World on his second voyage. By 1520 commercial sugar production was underway in the Caribbean, along with the perfection of methods to ferment and distill alcohol from sugarcane to produce a new beverage that would have dramatic impact on the region. Caribbean Rum presents the fascinating cultural, economic, and ethnographic history of rum in the Caribbean from the colonial period to the present. Drawing on data from historical archaeology and the economic history of the Caribbean, Frederick Smith explains why this industry arose in the islands, how attitudes toward alcohol consumption have impacted the people of the region, and how rum production evolved over 400 years from a small colonial activity to a multi-billion-dollar industry controlled by multinational corporations. He investigates the economic impact of Caribbean rum on many scales, including rum's contribution to sugarcane plantation revenues, its role in bolstering colonial and postcolonial economies, and its impact on Atlantic trade. Smith discusses the political and economic trends that determined the value of rum, especially war, competition from other alcohol industries, slavery and emancipation, temperance movements, and globalization. The book also examines the social and sacred uses of rum and identifies the forces that shaped alcohol use in the Caribbean. It shows how levels of drinking and drunken deportment reflected underlying social tensions, which were driven by the coercive exploitation of labor and set within a highly contentious hierarchy based on class, race, gender, religion, and ethnic identity, and how these tensions were magnified by epidemic disease, poor living conditions, natural disasters, international conflicts, and unstable food supplies.
360 pages, Paperback
First published January 3, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 28, 2023
As this was the 17th book I have read on the history of rum, I would like to emphasize that this is one of the best contemporary texts on rum history that I have read thus far. Frederick H. Smith’s “Caribbean Rum - A Social & Economic History” is a wonderfully researched and exceptionally detailed scholarly work on the history of Rum’s invention, production, and impacts in the Caribbean region. The text also wonderfully follows the distribution of Rum across the world and documents the international interests involved in both rum’s market successes and failures over the last 400 years!
One of the things that I found agitating about this book was that certain facts would be repeated in different chapters multiple times. Indeed, when a fact is presented a second or third time, it is expanded upon and given additional context relevant to the chapter’s subject matter, but I think the book could have benefited from sections being re-arranged to keep like-ideas together and provide a more fluid reading experience. On the other hand, I understand that this is a scholarly text, formatted perhaps for each chapter to serve as an article in an anthropology journal. The author may have repeated facts or data from figures in chapters in order to easily provide a section to students or academic journals and still maintain a comprehensive argument without referencing another chapter that would not be available when a single chapter was published alone. Each chapter also ends with a few paragraphs subheaded as “Conclusions” that would further suggest this publication concept. Some friends who witnessed me reading this book in public also bestowed upon me the title of: “Reading a textbook for fun”, so if you are looking for a fun, casual, and more accessible history of rum (and not as much a technical read full of "hard facts and figures" like Smith’s book) I would probably recommend a reader try Joseph Piercy’s “A Rum Tale”, which is a much more general and accessible read.
If you are looking for a book about the nitty-gritty of rum history in the earlier centuries of Caribbean colonialism, however, this is a truly wonderful book! Smith provides wonderful numeric details about economic factors regarding rum (such as cost, production totals, population figures, etc.) and well designed graphs of data to illustrate his points. The text's arguments are well researched and cited with noted citations. Unlike many of the other books on rum history that I have read, this book provides a delightful series of paragraphs about rum's chemical composition and the details of the evolution of technology used for rum's manufacture from early production to contemporary still designs. Facts like the deadly repercussions of "new rum" containing unhealthy quantities of lead in the late 1700's-early 1800's was one such example of a fascinating facet of rum history that I never come across in previous rum histories before reading about it in this book. There are also wonderful sections detailing various alcohol taxes and economic sanctions placed on the early rum trade by various countries over the long history of rum. Other insightful paragraphs detail environmental struggles early rum producers and sugar farmers encountered and how this impacted the market over time. I also enjoyed Smith's contextualizing of rum's place in the alcohol market in regards to European drinking trends during the colonial centuries. Smith even provides details about some European countries farming struggles during various points of history either increased or crippled the production of rum in the Caribbean or the product's sale overseas.
Books on rum's history always leave me in awe of the large quantities that were produced in early centuries like the 1700's. On what would have been very remote islands with limited communication and assistance from the mainland at the time, small organized groups of people were collectively able to produce, store, and ship hundreds of thousands of gallons of beverage every year. Frederick H. Smith helps contextualize these large numbers by providing anthropological insights that really make this read captivating - even when discussion points are re-addressed in later chapters of the book! Smith also offers a more nuanced and contemporary discussion of tribal culture and spiritual practices of Afro-Caribbean peoples and indigenous peoples through the lens of modern anthropology that readers will definitely appreciate (especially in comparison to less sensitive or sophisticated discussions like those presented by Charles A. Coulombe, for example) and while this book is indeed a more focused discussion of rum history instead of a text solely on Caribbean peoples' spiritual practices, the history of these topics that is provided always benefits the broader discussion of rum's history.
The only other aspects of this read that disappointed me was that there are only brief discussions of the Bacardi-Cuban "Havana Club" lawsuits and the "Rum and Coca Cola" intellectual property rights lawsuits towards the very end of the book. As these are fascinating and more contemporary aspects of rum history in the Caribbean (with large social and economic impacts in the region and abroad) it would have been nice to have larger discussions about these topics presented in the book. Granted, the bulk of the book focuses in such detail on about 400 years of history that perhaps by the end the author did not feel compelled to extend the text further. The copy of the book that I read, however, was published in 2008 (the first paperback printing) and there were certainly contemporary and interesting updates about both of these two separate aforementioned legal battles by 2008 that would have been interesting to have further presented by this author. Perhaps the author will be inspired to provide additional chapters or appendices that research these topics further in future editions of this text.
These trivial complaints aside, I truly found Frederick H. Smith's "Caribbean Rum - A Social and Economic History" to be a wonderfully researched, exceptionally detailed, and fascinating addition to the scholarly literature available to the public on the history of Rum in regards to a variety of different contexts. This work should definitely be included in any serious rum scholar's collection of texts and be a benchmark example for future academic research in this field of study.
One of the things that I found agitating about this book was that certain facts would be repeated in different chapters multiple times. Indeed, when a fact is presented a second or third time, it is expanded upon and given additional context relevant to the chapter’s subject matter, but I think the book could have benefited from sections being re-arranged to keep like-ideas together and provide a more fluid reading experience. On the other hand, I understand that this is a scholarly text, formatted perhaps for each chapter to serve as an article in an anthropology journal. The author may have repeated facts or data from figures in chapters in order to easily provide a section to students or academic journals and still maintain a comprehensive argument without referencing another chapter that would not be available when a single chapter was published alone. Each chapter also ends with a few paragraphs subheaded as “Conclusions” that would further suggest this publication concept. Some friends who witnessed me reading this book in public also bestowed upon me the title of: “Reading a textbook for fun”, so if you are looking for a fun, casual, and more accessible history of rum (and not as much a technical read full of "hard facts and figures" like Smith’s book) I would probably recommend a reader try Joseph Piercy’s “A Rum Tale”, which is a much more general and accessible read.
If you are looking for a book about the nitty-gritty of rum history in the earlier centuries of Caribbean colonialism, however, this is a truly wonderful book! Smith provides wonderful numeric details about economic factors regarding rum (such as cost, production totals, population figures, etc.) and well designed graphs of data to illustrate his points. The text's arguments are well researched and cited with noted citations. Unlike many of the other books on rum history that I have read, this book provides a delightful series of paragraphs about rum's chemical composition and the details of the evolution of technology used for rum's manufacture from early production to contemporary still designs. Facts like the deadly repercussions of "new rum" containing unhealthy quantities of lead in the late 1700's-early 1800's was one such example of a fascinating facet of rum history that I never come across in previous rum histories before reading about it in this book. There are also wonderful sections detailing various alcohol taxes and economic sanctions placed on the early rum trade by various countries over the long history of rum. Other insightful paragraphs detail environmental struggles early rum producers and sugar farmers encountered and how this impacted the market over time. I also enjoyed Smith's contextualizing of rum's place in the alcohol market in regards to European drinking trends during the colonial centuries. Smith even provides details about some European countries farming struggles during various points of history either increased or crippled the production of rum in the Caribbean or the product's sale overseas.
Books on rum's history always leave me in awe of the large quantities that were produced in early centuries like the 1700's. On what would have been very remote islands with limited communication and assistance from the mainland at the time, small organized groups of people were collectively able to produce, store, and ship hundreds of thousands of gallons of beverage every year. Frederick H. Smith helps contextualize these large numbers by providing anthropological insights that really make this read captivating - even when discussion points are re-addressed in later chapters of the book! Smith also offers a more nuanced and contemporary discussion of tribal culture and spiritual practices of Afro-Caribbean peoples and indigenous peoples through the lens of modern anthropology that readers will definitely appreciate (especially in comparison to less sensitive or sophisticated discussions like those presented by Charles A. Coulombe, for example) and while this book is indeed a more focused discussion of rum history instead of a text solely on Caribbean peoples' spiritual practices, the history of these topics that is provided always benefits the broader discussion of rum's history.
The only other aspects of this read that disappointed me was that there are only brief discussions of the Bacardi-Cuban "Havana Club" lawsuits and the "Rum and Coca Cola" intellectual property rights lawsuits towards the very end of the book. As these are fascinating and more contemporary aspects of rum history in the Caribbean (with large social and economic impacts in the region and abroad) it would have been nice to have larger discussions about these topics presented in the book. Granted, the bulk of the book focuses in such detail on about 400 years of history that perhaps by the end the author did not feel compelled to extend the text further. The copy of the book that I read, however, was published in 2008 (the first paperback printing) and there were certainly contemporary and interesting updates about both of these two separate aforementioned legal battles by 2008 that would have been interesting to have further presented by this author. Perhaps the author will be inspired to provide additional chapters or appendices that research these topics further in future editions of this text.
These trivial complaints aside, I truly found Frederick H. Smith's "Caribbean Rum - A Social and Economic History" to be a wonderfully researched, exceptionally detailed, and fascinating addition to the scholarly literature available to the public on the history of Rum in regards to a variety of different contexts. This work should definitely be included in any serious rum scholar's collection of texts and be a benchmark example for future academic research in this field of study.
September 15, 2025
A good analysis of the history of rum in the Caribbean. While it sometimes falls into the history book habit of listing numbers in chunks, the book also doesn't shy away from the problematic history of the spirit.
September 29, 2024
A very well researched book touching on rum in the Caribbean from the mid 1600's to today. I found parts of it though were too analytical and not narrative enough so I got bored with those parts
January 12, 2015
like, can i say a book is perfectly alright and really 3 stars is just because i find some ways of conveying information aggravating (i.e. how after chapters of in depth detail concerning the production of rum, Smith switches to a sort of book report gloss on the effects of infections European grape vines and the altered ratios of exporting sugar v. rum from the Caribbean to Europe and it just feels like an endless slog with graphs) or how sometimes information isn't strictly speaking helpful in any way (Hemingway shows up as an example of rum drinking twice in the book, neither of which go much of anywhere). I think this is really a nitpick but after covering very in depth the social arrangements, work arrangements and production arrangements around rum (in the colonial era) Smith sort of runs off to talk about a grand metapicture of Rum production in the WW1/WW2 - contemporary era? which as a segment BEGS for the sort of nuanced treatment (indebted as it is to the work of Mintz in "Sweetness & Power") that he gave Rum earlier in the book? Admittedly this would be a hellishly detailed book (since even the more nuanced and detailed things were sort of talking about meta-arrangements with asides on island based variation) but THAT REALLY FEELS LIKE THE BOOK THAT COULD'VE BEEN. This is a really good book and an excellent compliment to histories of sugar production in the Caribbean (specifically of course Mintz' in Sweetness and Power) but sometimes it feels like THERE COULD BE MORE (and i am a greedy reader).
December 29, 2012
This is by far the best historical look at the importance and impact of rum on the Caribbean. While other books include a similar scope and time line, Smith interrogates the historical record which reveals deeper meaning behind the social and economic uses of rum.
Want to read
August 22, 2009Kill Devil is what people called rum, and its where I live!
May 14, 2011
Detailed and well researched, with a good deal of information that is new to me. Not a comprehensive history, though; more like a linked series of monographs.
October 13, 2018
While a bit of a slog, Caribbean Rum is a valuable piece in the larger picture of the evolution of the Caribbean.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews