but the europeans did not know where the spices came from. so if you look at this picture in the upper corner here, this shows someone fishing in a river that they thought came out of paradise. they thought spices floated down a river somewhere in asia which was where the garden of eden still was. because they didn't know. they didn't know where sugar could come from. ..

>> take a look at this. you can see it's pretty dry, pretty woody. do you think you will get much sugar crystal from this? absolutely not. this is a read in which it must be milled within 48 hours of being cut. you have to cut the cane, did it over to some kind of process where they crushed the cane and they can get the pole out, and then it has to be boiled and boiled and boiled so that we can get those crystals that we all know. so this has to happen within a very short period of time. and it is, in fact, the

egyptian, the arabic world that developed the system by which we could process this cane, all of these reads. they developed something called that -- anybody wanted take a guess at what they invented to make the sugar cane be processed in a timely way? what do we call that? >> it's a system. they did use mills your what is the system called? >> you have a lot of people working to get this sugarcane processed. what do recall that? >> a plantation? >> very good. it was in the arabic world that they first develop the plantation where you have lots of people working, cutting the kane county getting it over to the mill, turning those fires on so that the sugar can be

processed. so this idea of sugarcane plantations, processing sugar spreads upwards into the mediterranean islands, the canary islands, okay? and there's somebody who we will now talk about how it made its way over to -- in the 1400s, spain and portugal were competing to explore down the coast of africa and find a sea route to asia. that way they could have the prized asian spices they wanted without having to pay high prices to the middleman. spanish and portuguese sailors searching for that sea route conquered the canary islands. soon they begin building muscle style sugar plantations on the

islands. some of them staffed by slaves, purchased from nearby africa. one sailor came to know these items particularly well. because he traded in white gold, sugar. and then as he set off on his second voyage across the sea do what he thought was asia, he carried sugarcane plant from one of the canary islands with them on a ship. his name was christopher columbus. >> and i have to tell you, marina and i cannot agree on who wrote that passage. we both like it so much we each want to say -- >> i say i wrote it. >> i say i wrote it. >> we still don't know where the truth lies. so, a lot of you mentioned south america, the west indies, all of

you who have backgrounds in the caribbeans, right? so this is now, sugar has been brought across this whole area here. we have barbados, all these places that have sugarcane planted on a. hispania only a. >> it is the dominican republican of haiti. >> cuba. all these are places where sugar is now being planted. so what is this now the beginning of income serve -- the beginning of in terms of world history? >> to be clear that's always been slavery everywhere in the world. slavery is as old as world history has existed in every part of the world. however, as marina was saying,

people -- christopher columbus brings sugar over on his second voyage. what do you need to have a lot of sugar? unique fertile soil. you need wind or water power to run the new. you need to be near water so you can shift it. you need a lot of wood, right, because you need to keep the fires burning because this bubbling vats of sugar. but you need one more thing to produce a sugar. what do you need? >> hard workers. >> you need hard, cheap workers. you need people to you can get to work for very little because the more they work, the cheaper they are, what happens to the price of sugar? >> echoes higher? >> or more likely is --

>> it goes lower. >> echoes lower because you're producing cheap sugar. the price goes down less. now, here is the most important little diagram. can any of you remember of the approximately 12 to 13 million africans sold into transatlantic slavery, what percentage were brought to north america where we are? what percentage gain to north america? i'm trying to find someone who hasn't spoken reflate. just guess. this is not a test. >> about 80%. >> 80% in north america is one guest. >> ninety-one. >> 91% in north america is another guess. >> 95%. >> one more just.

>> 52%. >> marina will now show you the actual percentage of enslaved africans who came to the united states. 4%. 4% of the enslaved africans were brought to north america. 96% of the enslaved africans were taken to the sugar land. if we have 50 of you in this room, that means two of you came to north america. 48 of you went to work in sugar. if you want to know the history of enslavement, it sure. sugar drove the world economy. it was the labor of the africans that spun the world, because as sugar is getting cheaper, what

-- >> well, first of all we will talk about what you would like to work on the sugar plantations. so we got sugar plantations. brazil, french guiana, all volunteers, haiti, all of these areas, that 96% are going to the sugar land. let's talk for a moment about what life was like on the sugar plantation. you saw these cane reeds here. you heard that once the harvest started, the sugarcane had to be cut and processed no later than 48 hours. what we had him we had droves of people, women, children. they were the ones who very often did the work of weeding. they were constantly telling the plants to get rid of the weeds. they would stand all day long in the boiling sun getting rid of

the weeds that would spring up around the sugarcane. there were other people who were sent in to plant, and they had to play in a very exact way. you see this title here, it would be in the middle of the one, and the next one and the next one. then there is very often the strongest were the ones would be sent and and they would be the cutters, and they would cut again and they would use, they would call either cutlets or machete, and they cut it. they would hold it and cannot get here, let it go down, and they would have to carry this game, -- carry this cane very often on top of their head. sometimes it have a cushion that would go on top of their head, and they carried over. then there would be other people -- >> wait, i want to interrupt for a second. i need a strong person to step up here.

>> right here. >> i want you to lift these games. hold of all of those together. let them all out. altogether. grabbed them and let them. >> i'm going to ask, guess how many in an average day women gathered them and carry them. how many do you think, now that you lifted his, how many do you think a woman could carry in a day? just a guess. give me a number. >> three. >> women have to gather 1200 stocks a day. 1200 stocks a day of the weight of what robert is just not caring to keep the process moving. thank you. >> so you have the people are carrying it, taking overcome and

then there is that people are feeding into rollers come into what ever mill system they have going that will grind it, then there are people working in what we call the boiling house. amboy, that boiling house is boiling. if you think it's hot right now under the lights, imagine a house where the furnaces are going all the time, day, night, and you have to keep working no matter what as a process that grounded sugar into the boiling vats. and there are people called and borders and they take these long ladles and they are testing and taking it what we call us, at the top. they take that off, okay, and they are testing it for the moment when sugar turns to crystal. there's an exact moment. that is when it goes from being a liquid to a crystal. process down.

then there's a whole other group of slaves who were there to put the sugar, to sit at the sugar put them into the barrels and then they are shipped across the seat. this goes on and on relentless cycles of work. on some plantations you might have trouble harvest in a year. it's not like there's a harvest and you're off for the rest of the year. they would plant one field over here or one harvest, another field over there for another harvest. so you were put on this relentless cycle of work. working, working. dangers were, particularly in the boiling house where people's arms could get caught in the rollers. very, very hot and dangerous work. >> if you look carefully at the illustration of the meal, there's a sword that was kept next to the mill.

can anyone guess why would you keep a sword next to the mill? >> for protection? >> no. why would you keep a sword next to the mill? >> just in case it stops working? >> nope. >> to chop up the cane? >> the reason you have a sword next to the mill is if you -- people are working 12 hours a day, i'm sorry, 14 hours a day. have you ever been really tired and you close your eyes for a minute? if you are feeding into the mill and you close your eyes women and your hand goes into the mill, the mill will not stop. the only way to save you is to cut off your arm. and they talked about how many one armed people they saw on the

plantations, because that was it. what marina said is true. they will never stop the process. and that is why when we talk about 96% and why it's so unfamiliar for so many of us, and all of the sugar land, the enslaved people died faster than they had children. the work was so brutal that you are constantly bringing over more people simply to replace the people who were dying. the work was so relentless. >> so, here's my question. we now have sugar, this cheap commodity. do you want to give us the steps of how much should do we go from? >> in 1700, the average english version 84 pounds of sugar a year.

1800, 14 pounds. 1900, 90 pounds. 2000s, 140 pounds in america. now and 2010, 150 pounds. sugar transformed how we eat. transformed who we were. and this acceleration is because you have enslaved people who are driving the price of sugar so far down that everyone can have it. it's not a luxury. it's not a fight. it's not a decoration. it's a necessity. >> it's what we call a staple. now, let me ask you. who are these people who are eating all the sugar wax 90 pounds of sugar, 40 cups of tea. what is going on? why are people eating so much

sugar in their day? >> because it's a sweet. >> we've always had a sweet. why suddenly so much consumption of this sugar is going on? >> because sugar is in everything now. >> but why? why were people craving -- that is now. >> the price is gone down so much. >> the price has gone down, and who are the people eating the sugar? >> because there are more slav slaves. >> that is who is making the sugar. who is consuming? those carols are going across the sea? where are they going? >> what's happening is just at the moment that the sugar price is going down, there's a huge change taking place first in england and how people work. people used to work on farms or they would work in a little

shop. starting around 1800, people in england are working in factories. if you work in a factory, you are working 10 hours, 12 hours, 14 hours. can you just leader factoring go to the farm and pick an apple? >> no. >> how are you going to get enough energy to get through your day when you're working in a factory? >> sugar. and there are three substances that they would take the sugar with. tea, coffee, and chocolate. so what you have is you have slaves in the caribbeans producing a cheap sugar, shipping it off in barrels, and it's going to england where you have workers working in factories, working their own long chefs.

they get through the day without sweetening cheese. they drink it, they go. they haven't with a bit of bread. they put sugar on that bread. before you know we have something called the cookie. we have something called the biscuit. all of the things we take for granted that. those energy bars are people like to be now, all of that dates back to the moment when people began to work in factories. at that time they would drink something like 40 cups of tea to get them through the day. and this is why they are starting to consume so much sugar. >> but here's the twist. here's the interesting twist. we have just seen sugar leading to death, brutality, enslavement. we had just seen how sugar is healing the industrial revolution. well, on the sugar island, the planters are getting really, really rich. they are getting so rich they

don't even have to live on the islands anymore. they move off to england. the plant -- you may own 2000, you know, people, acres and acres in jamaica, our betas, antigua, but you live in london. and when you live in london, you can go to parliament and you can make the laws in england, and you can make laws that say everybody in the english empire must eat sugar only from british islands. and do you know who gets mad about that? the americanamerican spirit the americans say, no taxation without representation. how come the sugar island owners are so rich they can live in london? we can't live in london. that's not fair. we want to be independent. at the beginning of the drive for the american revolution comes when the americans say i can't stand these sugar laws

that you west indians -- the sugar tax, exactly what you said, that you are so right. the beginning of the american revolution is started as the americans are angry over the british planters. we mentioned the industrial revolution. with mention of the american revolution. anybody remember any of the revolution that happened around, you know, the end of the 1700s, the beginning of the 1800? >> around the world. what other revolutions do we know about? >> the french indian war. >> the french indian war. >> the french indian work. and what revolution? >> the french revolution. >> you right. so the french get rid of their king. the french even abolish slavery. however, the french revolution consumes itself in violence. have any of you ever heard of a

guillotine? big 18, if you think of the french revolution, you think of this big knife going -- they were consuming themselves in violence, so a general was put in charge of france. does anybody remember his name? >> famous french general. >> famous for being short. >> napoleon? >> napoleon takes over in france, and napoleon says wait a second, wait a second, hold on a second. this bringing the slaves thing, that's not a good idea. so he decides that he wants to make -- he's going to feed his empire. he's going to get a lot of money for france by going back to spain, he's going to make this island the sugar center of the world. and in order to do that he buys the middle of america to feed

haiti. anybody remember one more revolution? 1804, a date you need to know. [inaudible] >> no. 1804. >> in 1804, the haitians have defeated the two most powerful armies in the world. they have defeated the british and the french. when the haitians become independent, napoleon no longer needs the center of north america. he sells it to us and that is called -- louisiana purchase. >> louisiana purchase, great. >> the louisiana purchase is haiti's gift to america. it is because haiti achieved its freedom that napoleon didn't need the center of america. all right. haiti is the second country in the world to fight free of its

european masters, to be independent. it is our near neighbor. and 1804 haiti becomes free. when does the united states recognize its sister, the only other free republic in our part of the world? when? take a guess. >> when they could get more advantage of a? >> no, in what year? >> 1892? >> not a horrible gas, but it's not true. >> 1862? >> yes. 1862. if we, the united states will not recognize the republic of freed slaves. why not? why will it take us until 1863 to recognize the republic of freed slaves?

>> because that's the time of the civil war? >> exactly. and tell we are ready to free our own slaves we cannot accept the principle that slaves can free themselves. so here you have haiti achieved freedom and we ignore it. we ignore it, except there's one thing that happened. the slave masters in haiti need to go somewhere. they are not going to stay in the republic of slaves who fought for their freedom. where might they go? some went to cuba. where did the other ones go? someone who hasn't spoken. you haven't spoken much. where's the -- >> the united states and? >> where? >> where in the united states might it help? >> somebody -- come on. take a guess.

[inaudible] >> no. where might they go? >> i don't know, the south? >> where in the south? >> who won the super bowl last year? >> new orleans. >> louisiana. louisiana. friends, have something to tell you. i have something to tell you. i mention that in all the sugar lands, enslave people died faster than they have children. in every one of the american slave states, with one exception, slave people had children faster than they died. there was one exception. what do you think the exception was? >> so they could have more labor? >> yeah, but what's the one slave state where people died faster than they had children?

>> what state? >> which is state? >> probably maryland. >> nope. the answer is louisiana. because sugar is deadly. sugar is nonstop labor, so the one slave state in which people died faster than they had children. so we are going to now switch to the next act, but i want to take something, friends, this is -- the hard part of writing this book is that we had to ride about this tragedy. about this level of brutality and death. because it's true. you have to tell this story, but we also wanted to give some voice to the people who have passed away. how could we let them speak? well, one way we could is, there's a lot of music and dance that came out of enslave the lands, the sugar lands. and on our website,

sugarchangedtheworld.com, we have for example, there's a brazilian dance. at any of you heard of that? here we will see a little of it. and this came directly out of the sugar plantations. >> it is a fighting style. when the master came by, leave us alone, no problem here. we are just having a good time. if we do want to fight, if we do want to rebel, we want to know how to fight. do we have on our website at sugarchangedtheworld.com, many kinds of music and dance that is

the heritage that came out of the sugar land so that we would understand this isn't just death. there was also life. >> we now want to turn the next act to this idea of how did slavery in fact end, okay? you have, sugar is now being relentlessly created with slaves in the west indies. it's a very cheap product that everybody eats, that we are all dependent upon. you had slave owners. you had india planters are getting rich off of this, and they basically own to parliament in england. their voice gets heard. how would it be possible to ever have this idea that a slave could be free, that a slave is not the property of another person?

where did this idea begin? so what we are going to do is we're going to go back to thinking about that world of england where you had people working in factories, where you had people also having another kind of revolution. it's a resolution -- revolution in the mind. it's a change of ideas. and what starts to happen is you have what we call the evolution movement in england. this is not the evolution movement of the united states. but in england. where they launched a brilliant, brilliant campaign. how many of you know, sometimes you go, let's say, to a coffee shop or a starbucks and they will say this coffee is free trade coffee, or you might have a cotton shirt that says that has been made, no children have worked in this factor. have you ever seen anything like

that or nike sneakers will they tell you know children helped make this, right? free trade coffee. all of that dates back to the evolution movement where you have people try to figure out how do i convey to the average person the fact that the sugar they need everyday is produced by someone who is giving their life for this? so they began to create little purses that they would carry that showed an image of a woman slave weeping under a tree. they would have labels that would say do not bring this blood sweetened of her average -- blood sweetened beverage. it would remind people every day when they were sipping that wonderful sweetened beverage that blood went into that beverage. they made it close to the people

year after year. they would show the changed data slaves were brought over in. the whips that were used. so that people would get a feeling for this practice that took place so many thousands of miles away. all they know is the sugar. >> what they did is they connected the product to the person who made it. so every time you took a sweet taste, you thought of the blood price for your sugar. and they one. in 1838, england and slavery. england, which was making more money out of sugar slavery than any other country in the world, was the first country in the world to abolish slavery. >> what you have been, imagine this, 1838 in jamaica, in trinidad, in tobago, in all of

the british colonies, the bells rang. they rang and they rang and they rang. it was emancipation day in the british colonies in the west indies. all of those slaves were now free. but there were people who were not happy with the idea that the slaves were free. there were people who listened to those tolling bells and they felt this is a death knell of my livelihood, and that was the west india planters because they said, who's going to cut my cane? and we're going to find out soon how they solved that. but in the meantime, we're going to take a break. >> we will take you on a quick little journey. remember that general, the short

general with his hand -- what was his name to get? >> napoleon has this problem. he lost haiti. he sold louisiana. the british controlled the seas. where's he going to get the sugar? he's not going to get it from the brits. they are his enemies. where can napoleon get sugar? >> new guinea? >> that's not a bad idea. the brits controlled of the seas. he can't make use of any seaborne transportation. >> europe? >> europe, but sugar cane doesn't grow in europe. >> how are they going to get sugar and? >> how are you going to get sugar? >> asian? >> sugar overland from asia? not very likely. how is poor napoleon and the french people going to sweden their hot chocolate? >> we're not going over there. spent by using something, by

using syrup from the maple trees? >> that's substitute. >> say again. >> bees. >> remember where my story began? napoleon learned that a german scientist had figured out that beet sugar is chemically identical to cane sugar. this was the first time in human history that a tropical product could be substituted by another product. science is now going to tell us where our sweetness comes from. not anymore the plantation, at least the british slaves have been freed. science is not going to begin to give us our sugar. >> so what we have in this period which is exactly what links us, same period, that

serve that is related, he is developing beet sugar. and here in the west indies, the west indian planters are saying who is going to cut my cane? >> they are going to get someone to cut their cane big noise coming from africa. know from south america, known for north america. they did actually try bring and insulate people from ireland to barbados your they said to barbados someone was to take a slave -- by the way, shows slavery was a racial. you could be enslaved for being catholic. because it was about who are we going to get to cut the cane. >> all right, you're not getting in with them here. you're not getting anyone from here. you are not getting anyone from here. where can you get someone to cut the cane? >> your children or family members?

>> no. the formerly enslaved people are as far away from the plantations they can get. >> they are not going back to those plantations, right? >> canada. >> nope. >> ukraine? >> no. the answer is people were brought from the other country in england's control, india. marina's relatives were brought -- people from india. any of you have ever been to trinidad, to tobago, to jamaica, to the guy on this know there are many people from india in the caribbean's. why? because they were brought to cut the cane. >> once those bells told and is slated i do want to work on these plantations, what the slave owners, but the india planters did is they started a system that we call in venture.

where you are not going to enslaved, you sign a contract, they bring you over and you have to work for at least five years on the plantation. you are technically allowed a passage back if you fulfill the terms of your contract. very often people did not go back. sometimes because they didn't make enough money to make it worth it. they are not going back to the village and say look at all this money i made, but they chose to settle. most chose to settle in the caribbean and the other places that they were taken to. they are the ones who are now working the sugar cane plantations which is precisely how it links to my family's story. we should also mention that this idea of bringing people over to work the plantations, perhaps not as slaves but as indentured

workers also affected another part of the world that is now part of the united states. it is a place where they grew a lot of sugar cane. can anybody think what that place might be were them i'd be a lot of sugar cane? >> a wide. >> you are absolutely right. >> exactly right. >> they brought over japanese, chinese, koreans and filipinos at various wage to work the cane plantations which were growing in hawaii. so the indentured system is out many, many, many people still work these plantations there now, there is another place in the world where there was sugar plantations, other kinds of plantations, to come where indians were sent.

anybody have any idea? not the caribbean. any idea of one other place where indians were sent from india? >> madagascar are? >> some, yes. >> anywhere else? >> china? >> no. >> one more just. >> russian? >> note. >> they were sent to the very bottom of africa, south africa. one area where there's quite a lot of sugar. there was quite a bit of sugar that was growing there. and one day a man came into the office of a barrister -- a barrister is a lawyer -- and he

had broken ribs, rags, his teeth were broken and he was weeping. he was weeping because his owner, the plantation owner had treated him so poorly. and his lawyer thought to himself, what is the system that would so mistreat workers? is this not a form of slavery? now, this lawyer is someone we have come to know since. does anybody know -- he was in south africa, he was from india. does anybody know who this man was? >> behind is condi? >> exactly. who they would -- we then came to call him mahatma ghandi. why would we call him god the

the great? what is it he did for us? anybody? >> he helped people that were working for the people to get the rights back. >> and how did he -- how did he do that? in what way? what was his philosophy? [inaudible] >> wonderful. >> he went on strike? >> he went on strike. >> he was in favor of peace, yes. >> everyone of these things is true. and i for and it makes everyone blind. you go on strike. you march. he preached, he developed this idea of nonviolence. he developed the idea that you

must be pure insole, and this is how we shall fight this injustice. and that is what we call -- true force or soul force. and year after year he thought, these poor people who are working marched with them and they managed to abolish the indentured system through this philosophy. >> so ghandi succeeded in south africa. he brought his idea of nonviolence resistance to india. he brought india to independen independence. who study the ideas of mahatma ghandi? who in america studied the ideas of mahatma ghandi?

>> martin luther? >> martin luther king. martin luther king saw that ghandi succeeded. so if we think back to sugar and we think back to this idea that a product can link you to the person who produced it, sugar is responsible again for most of the atlantic slavery, for millions of deaths, for horrible brutality, and indentured system that left many, many casualties. but sugar also was used by the abolitionists, led to the ending of slavery, the first in the world. and inspired gandhi to develop the conflict of nonviolence resistance which would then be used in india and come back to america. so if you go now, when you go into look at the label o on the candy bar you eat, or the serial

you have in the morning, and it says sugar, you will know that in that one word is magic is the spice, is slavery, is freedom, is science. that history is right there. and it is therefore you do know and it is there for you to know what you think today. what am i using? what price am i paying? who is paying a price what i enjoyed? what links me to the people of the world? and i will tell you on the cover of our book is children during sugar cane is now. this is in the dominican republic today. this is not 100 years ago. this is now. so when we talk about the price of the things we enjoy, if we honor them those people who ended slavery, and if we honor those people who fought

nonviolently for change, we can also think about the products we use and what choices we can make to honor those who suffered to give us pleasure. martin luther king wrote in his letter from the birmingham jail that we are all linked in the west. we are all linked in a web, and we see that in this product. we eat everyday. and that was a story we we try to tell in "sugar changed the world." i hope it's been useful for you. [applause] >> we have time for a few questions. >> we have time for a few questions.

three from kennedy and three from ms 61 perhaps. >> go for it. >> how do you feel when you went past were used to work and it was a car placed? >> when my family's home once was. he is referring to the story that i had always heard about my beautiful, beautiful family house that was built with my family's success right in the sugar land. and the house was gone. it had been torn down. and, of course, i felt very, very sad because there was no house. and yet at the same time, in the tropics things fall down pretty quickly. they don't last as long as we think -- we have houses of bricks that last forever, right? in the tropics, the tropics sees things come and go. but the other thing i had to accept is that was history. that was another time.

my family did well. they had this house, and, in fact, my father wound up integrating and coming to the united states. we do move on, and it was time for the next generation to do something without a spot of land. >> i should mention if you come to our website we have a link where it will take you -- it's on google earth than you can go to the village where marina's ancestral home is. >> another question. >> how are you able to link your lives through the story of sugar? >> well, we started just with the start of my aunt and marina's family, so that began us on the journey. and they we just started tracing all the connections from there.

>> what is the most significant thing you guys learned from writing the book? >> you know, for me it was that 96% of -- i did not know that 96% of the enslaved africans went to sugar land. that really changed my view. and i actually felt at that point that it's criminal that we don't know that. what other part of our life can we say let's study 4% and ignored 96%. no other part of our life. so that was true for me. >> i think what was true for me is i had always known about the nonviolent movement, but i never realized it was linked to sugar. we know about ghandi. we know about nonviolence, but i never connected it to sugar. so that was a revelation for me. >> i have a question for both of you.

[inaudible] >> i really think it was learning about our relatives, but also the thing is we are husband and wife. i am mostly historian. marine is mostly a novelist. we wanted to combine our talents. we wanted to study something together. >> did you ever come to a dead-end? >> the one dead end i came to is i was looking for more information -- i think that place has a fascinating and i had trouble getting as much information about it as i wanted. the other dead end is come in the 1930s people went to interview people who are still alive who wouldn't enslaved in america. so we do have some interviews with people who worked in sugar slavery in louisiana, which we mention in the book. but we could not find the same voices for the sugar lands.

we couldn't find people talking about what was it like to live on a sugar plantation in haiti or brazil specter was mind-boggling to think that 12 million came across to work in this word and we do have their voices. -- we don't have their voices. that is what inspired us to do the website where you can hear the music and the song and the rituals, and the things that they were able to develop and, of course, they could not write this all down about their experiences. >> do you plan to make this book into a movie or documentary? >> if someone wants to do if we would love that. >> how was it to write the book together with your different

ideas? >> a great question. as you know, as you heard we still argue about that one paragraph in that one sentence. i'm sure i wrote it. >> i'm sure i wrote it. >> right. we actually really enjoyed it, because when we went into the process we knew that we were very different writers. marks training is as a historian. i am very interested in storytelling and narratives and texture and setting and characters. that's what i think about, but i do also love history. so we went into it knowing that we each brought something different. you know, it's like having a meal where you have the sweet parts and have the sour parts. when you that we would bring different things to the table. >> marine is a professor in college, teaches english. and she is a really tough editor. so i would write something and she would criticize it, and then i would be angry and say no, this is great. what are you talking about?

and then, you know, a day later, you're right. we would go through it that way. >> this storytelling, like this storytelling to write this whole book? >> we tried wherever we could to include personal stories. because as i said at the beginning this is so huge it can be overwhelming, but we wanted to make it personal whenever we could. yes? >> as an african-american, i know that as part of my heritage is storytelling. is that what spoke to and is that something you try to convey in the book? >> it is in a sense in that we want to recover all these stories. and in particular, when we keep talking about the experience of the sugar land, one thing as you all know that's happening now is more and more people are coming to america from the caribbean.

more and more people are coming to america to the caribbean background. more and more people are coming to america that are hispanic which means almost anything. but also can mean having this background, and we wanted those stories to begin to be told. we are also hoping that people who perform these musics, who dance maculele, will bring their art into the school so that we can all share and experience this beauty that came out of so much pain. >> last question. >> wended slavery start to be about raise? >> that's a great question. i have written a whole other book on the. basically in the initial years when africans were sold into slavery, the europeans actually used one group of africans to guard another. because the africans had no sense of raise. pages had their own i don't like the next group over, just like

the europeans didn't like the next group over. it was only after hundreds of years that the sense of difference became attached to skintone rather than language, religion, belief, kingship, geography, all the other ways that we divide. so actually raise in its modern sense, the way we think about it, was only invented in the late 1700s. it's a very, very late and new idea. >> let's give them another round of applause. [applause] >> thank you. >> and your teachers for bringing you today, please. [applause] >> for more information about sugar change the world and the book's authors visit

sugarchangedtheworld.com. >> jonathan schneer talks about the balfour declaration which split historic palestine between israelis and palestinians and create one of the longest-running conflicts in modern history. he speaks at the jimmy carter library and museum in atlanta. this is just over an hour. specs on going to tell you about this book that i've just written, it's about the balfour

declaration. the balfour declaration was published, or was made -- was written and given to the cabinet and accepted by the british cabinet on the second of november, 1917. in the balfour declaration, great britain promise to support establishment of a home, a national home for the jews and palestine. and as jackie said, today the balfour declaration is seen by some as the foundation stone of modern israel, and, therefore, something to be celebrated. it is seen by others as the first step in arab disposition and misery, and, therefore, something to be deported. but everybody, everybody has viewed it as an inevitable byproduct of a growing anglo zionist intimacy during world war i. and every previous book, to my knowledge, about the declaration

celebrate the remarkable campaign led by a scientist leader in great britain, the russian born chemist like fun. and they celebrate how he taught the principles of his movement, zionism to the british political elite. well, i don't in any way discount his extraordinary qualities and talents. he was indeed one in 10 million. nevertheless, my book emphasizes not the inevitability of his triumph, but his contingency. as i came to understand the balfour declaration nearly didn't happen. moreover, it was not written in stone. even after its publication, the british prime minister whose name was david lloyd george, was prepared to finesse the declaration under certain circumstances as i will be

explaining this evening. so, now let me figure out how this works. there we go. 1914, the middle east, palestine was part of the ottoman empire whose capital of course was constantinople. the ottoman empire included most of the middle east which is to say mess up again you, which we now call iraq, and syria, including lebanon and palestine at the time in those days, the arabian peninsula, and egypt, although egypt -- although ostensibly under ottoman control in fact in 1883 really had been under british control. now, the ottoman empire was ruled by a revolutionary party that had seized power in 190