Sweets: a history of candy

Sweets: a history of candy by Tim Richardson.

France, Britain and the US are particularly well-represented in this history of sweets broadly defined. There are some attempts to include the influences of other world regions such as Arabia on Western sweet culture, and more coverage of the history of sweets in Turkey and India, with one final catch-all chapter for the entire world. Descriptions of historical and modern sweets such as manus christi "a [gold-leaf covered] stick of hard sugar candy flavoured with violets, cinnamon or rosewater", Rhubarb and Custards and Dutch salty licorice are particularly intriguing. A chapter on the modern candy industry delineates the rise of companies such as Cadbury, Suchard, Hershey. This book attempts to cover a lot of ground from the history of sugar to health fears and claims, the history of chocolate to international candy. Written with humour this leaves me wanting to know more.