SUGAR BARONS (PB)

For 200 years after 1650 the West Indies were the most fought-over colonies in the world. Europeans made and lost immense fortunes growing and trading in sugar - a commodity so lucrative that it was known as white gold. Young men, beset by death and disease, an ocean away from the moral anchors of life in Britain, created immense dynastic wealth but produced a society poisoned by war, sickness, cruelty and corruption. This book explores the lives of those whose fortunes rose and fell with the West Indian empire.