A review by karingforbooks
Sugar in the Blood: A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire by Andrea Stuart

5.0

I love how she told the story of Barbados through the lens of her family. And she did it well, without telling familial anecdotes the whole time but including germane ones when relevant. It read well, with narrative elements about her family rather than strictly a historical book. I like how she calls out the brutality of slavery, particularly in the Caribbean, but also acknowledges that it had a brighter side (I won’t say good for obvious reasons and because she didn’t say good) as well. I think she did a great job of researching and writing a book about race over the last four hundred years while balancing notes of today.

In the epilogue there’s a reference to indentured servitude as being against the third amendment of the Us constitution (pg 320 5 lines up) but the third is about soldiers quartering in American homes. So I don’t think that’s the right amendment. I assume it would be the thirteenth which abolished slavery and indentured servitude. Just a side note.