Chocolate Wars

Today, I am going to walk through the doors of the Louisville Free Public Library and return The Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers by Deborah Cadbury.

Recommended by my dad (who is a prolific reader), Chocolate Wars is what it's subtitle implies - an exhaustive history of chocolate and its many manufacturers. Notable characters include the Cadbury brothers, Milton Hershey, Henri Nestle, and Forrest Mars. Written by relative Deborah Cadbury, Chocolate Wars not only tells the history of the industry, but seeks to give insight into the economical and religious beliefs of the pioneers of chocolate.

Cadbury did an excellent job of explaining the history and development of chocolate and its impact on the world at large. As the name implies, she gives great detail about the confection's 150 year battle between companies. However, this also is a bit of a drawback to the book. At times, her detail is so great that the reader can somewhat get lost in all of the numbers, intricacies of machinery, and minutia of the day-to-day business tasks she describes. While details are pertinent in many of her stories, in many others they are not and I found myself impatiently flipping forward in the book, wondering how many pages of data were left in that particular chapter.

As you begin the book, it is clear that Cadbury greatly incorporates the influence of the Quaker religion on the chocolate industry - especially with the Cadbury family. This is appropriate because so much of how the Cadbury's company ran was based on the devout beliefs of the early family. The way they chose to work, advertise, employ, and expand were a direct result of their beliefs. At times, though, Cadbury veers too far from the story of chocolate when she spends far too many pages on the many philanthropic and political endeavors of the family that become somewhat redundant and unrelated. These stories are interesting, no doubt, but too numerous and lengthy.

By far the greatest disappointment in this book was Cadbury's own political and economic views that were as bitter as the chocolate her family loved. Clearly, her disdain for the current state of the company (owned by the American corporation Kraft) is woven into every few pages as you finally get to the climactic last chapters where she launches into accusations of Kraft's disdain for a quality product, Fairtrade, and even accuses them of contributing to obesity in North America.

While all these accusations may or may not be true, it is obvious that Cadbury longs for the glory days of her family's company when it was private, but those days are long gone. In attempting to celebrate Cadbury's history, she leaves a sour taste with her own political and economic opinions. In my view, the story would have been better told by an independent historian.

If you can live with the subtle personal commentary by Cadbury, you will enjoy Chocolate Wars. Overall, I enjoyed the book. It was well-written, well-researched and she chose a riveting topic (who doesn't love chocolate?) As I told my dad, the enjoyment/dislike ratio was about 85/15, and he encouraged me to focus on the 85% I liked. Good advice from a great man. As for owning this book, it goes for $27.95 retail and Amazon has it for $17.96. You Kindle owners can continue to stockpile all your saved money with this one - the Kindle edition is only $14.99. If you want a really great deal, head to your local public library and get it for free!

Happy Reading!

TOTAL PAGES READ IN 2011: 2, 793