Deborah Cadbury - Chocolate Wars

Read Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry. Available now in hardback http://tinyurl.com/27axj3g

The delicious true story of the world's most famous chocolate firms by award-winning writer and a descendant of the Cadbury chocolate dynasty, Deborah Cadbury.

In 'Chocolate Wars' bestselling historian and award-winning documentary maker Deborah Cadbury takes a journey into her own family history to uncover the rivalries that have driven 250 years of chocolate empire-building.

In the early nineteenth century Richard Tapper Cadbury sent his son, John, to London to study a new and exotic commodity: cocoa. Within a generation, John's sons, Richard and George, had created a chocolate company to rival the great English firms of Fry and Rowntree, and their European competitors Lindt and Nestlé. The major English firms were all Quaker family enterprises, and their business aims were infused with religious idealism.

In America, Milton Hershey and Forrest Mars proved that they had the appetite for business on a huge scale, and successfully resisted the English companies' attempts to master the American market. As chocolate companies raced to compete around the globe, Quaker capitalism met a challenge that would eventually defeat it. At the turn of the millennium Cadbury, the sole independent survivor of England's chocolate dynasties, became the world's largest confectionary company. But before long it too faced a threat to its very survival, and the chocolate wars culminated in a multi-billion pound showdown pitting independence and Quaker tradition against the cut-throat tactics of a corporate leviathan.

Featuring a colourful cast of savvy entrepreneurs, brilliant eccentrics and resourceful visionaries, 'Chocolate Wars' is the story of a uniquely alluring product and of the evolution, for better and worse, of modern business.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• 'Chocolate
• Wars'
• Chocolate
• Kraft
• Cadbury
• Deborah
• capitalism
• Quaker
• business

[sithu04]

cadbury is worst tasting chocolate after hershey's of course. it is cheap treat for poor people.

[nilo4339]

She's a fabulous writer - any of her books read a treat. My favourite is "Dinosaur Hunters" which is beautifully narrated by Andrew Sachs in the audio version (downloadable). Didn't know that she was so young!

[frickfrock999]

As a chocolate reviewer myself, I find Deborah absolutely enchanting.

[1HonestLove9]

I need to read Deborah Cadbury's other book: "Dreams of Iron and Steel: Seven Wonders of the Modern Age, from the Building of the London Sewers to the Panama Canal."

[sundave912]

Thanks a ton Deborah! What a wonderful read your book is, wish I could thank you in person. This is one of those books one's subconscious was waiting for. Brings back such nostalgic memories of the first Dairy Milk I sunk my teeth into. Curse those  myopic investors who sold it to Kraft!

[rscmrcmd]

I've not read 'Chocolate Wars' but it's at the top of my list of "must reads". Deborah Cadbury also wrote, "The Lost King of France" which I read a few weeks ago. She did a lot of exacting investigation into the saga of Louis XVll, Louis Charles, Marie Antoinette's youngest son who died (was murdered really) in the Temple prison in Paris at the end of the Revolution. It's a great book, a page turner of a read, an important historical book and she is a brilliant and caring historian and author.

[chocolate650]

Hello,

This book sounds just fabulous.

If you are a chocophile, you may also be interested in my website:

chocolateratings. I rate chocolate from all over the world.

Wishing you great success with your book, which I hope to read and review for my site.

Sincerely,

Nicole

[smitzerful1]

Thanks Deborah, it's a brilliant book. I got six books for Christmas ... and it's the best by a mile. Nearly finished now. George Cadbury senior in the star IMHO ... but a star among stars. Very inspiring. Today's capitalists take note. Thanks for all your hard work. You're a star too.