In Sugar and Civilization: American Empire and the Cultural Politics of Sweetness, April Merleaux views the complexities of U.S. imperialism through the lens of sugar production and consumption. This book begins filling the void between cultural, economic, and political studies of imperialism by connecting all aspects through the lens of sugar. Covering the period from the Spanish-American War through the New Deal, Merleaux masterfully connects the commodities market with cultural interpretations of gender, race, class, and citizenship to explain the complexities of U.S. imperial policy.

Merleaux demonstrates that sugar was the center of the debate over annexation and imperialism and was also at the heart of the conflict between expansion and exclusion. As Merleaux reveals, U.S. leaders negotiated imperial policies through discussions about the production and consumption of sugar that would balance the need for economic growth while safeguarding preferential policies for white farmers and consumers. Central to these discussions were the tariff, immigration, and consumption.

As she admits, most readers “glaze over at the mention of tariffs” (30), but Merleaux manages to demonstrate that the sugar tariffs played a significant role in the negotiation of political and cultural responsibility. Traditionally, the tariff was a crucial component of the imperial process, used to encourage foreign investment in its newly acquired territories, but also as a means of protecting the fledgling sugar beet industries in the arid western states. Western farmers attempting to grow sugar beets wanted price advantages over sugar cane producers in the newly acquired territories, but monopolistic refiners in the United States pushed for lower tariffs to ensure cheap, raw products from the territories. However, the sugar tariff was complicated by racialized arguments. Some expansionists pushed for a low tariff to encourage investment in the new territories, thus ensuring modernization in the territories and civilization of the people. Anti-expansionists argued for high tariff as a protection for white sugar beet farmers in the United States who were attempting to civilize the west by producing with civilized white labor.

The struggle to find the balance between protectionism and incorporation of newly acquired territories proved difficult and led to the overproduction of sugar. One solution to this problem was to encourage increased sugar consumption. Refining monopolies worked in conjunction with the government to stimulate consumerism in the sugar industry. Marketing the “proper” consumption of sugar through women's magazines helped to create a connection between civilized table and hostess etiquette and the commodity of sugar. In creating this cultural connection to sugar consumption, the sugar industry created among U.S. citizens a sense of both privilege and duty in the consumption of sugar. This in turn posed difficulties for the government when attempting to conserve sugar during World War I and to provide access to the commodity during the economic crisis of the 1930s. The solution was to create a hierarchical classification system for sugar based on quality of refinement and color, thus privileging white consumers with highly refined and pure white sugar, and limiting non-white consumers to the less-refined varieties.

Merleaux demonstrates that this purity classification system also created new avenues for reinforcing existing cultural and political identities. Highly refined white sugar, especially when consumed through proper tea etiquette, enabled the consumer to claim civilized white middle-class status, while consuming raw or unrefined darker sugars indicated lower-class, uncivilized status. Later, for non-white laborers and consumers, choosing to consume homemade or less-processed sugars became a form of resistance; an expression of ethnic pride; or a simple attempt at economic autonomy, as in the case of Mexican American sugar beet workers choosing their native piloncillo even at the higher imported cost. The production of processed candies also resulted in a hierarchical division of both labor and consumer, where highly refined, handmade candies made only by white women and marketed to middle-class whites were juxtaposed with less refined and mass produced sugar candies marketed to non-white and lower classes.

Merleaux does not fail to address the labor and immigration issues associated with the global commodities trade. Her examination of the sugar industry reveals the difficulties with imperialism, the problem of importing goods produced outside of the country by cheap labor over goods produced in the country by cheap labor who immigrated from outside. In the 1920s, western farmers began using child labor in the beet fields, which reformers blamed on increased competition from cane sugar plantations in the Caribbean and Philippines who used cheap colonial labor to produce. Once those reformers began succeeding in the passage of child labor restrictions, white beet farmers then began hiring migrant workers from Mexico to compete with the less-expensive cane sugar workers. American nativists then took up the argument, pushing for immigration restrictions to protect the political body from these non-white peoples while ensuring supremacy of the struggling white farmers in the west.

By the end of the book, Merleaux accomplishes an impressive task of connecting an emerging sugar empire with racial, gender, and class issues vexing U.S. policymakers. Merleaux's examination of commodity culture as it influenced, and was influenced by, U.S. imperial policies is well argued and researched. She manages to combine the traditional political and economic complexities of imperialism with the cultural meanings of commodities themselves. In this instance, the commodity of sugar became the unifying thread through which race, class, gender, migration, and citizenship meanings were negotiated under this new imperial society.