«Un genere pressocché necessario»: consumo, politica e industria dello zucchero nel Regno di Napoli in età rivoluzionaria e napoleonica[“An almost necessary good”: sugar consumption, politics and industry in the Kingdom of Naples during the revolutionary and Napoleonic age]

During the late modern age, sugar moved from being a luxury to a necessary good. The Napoleonic era is an excellent point of view to examine this process. Indeed, the Napoleonic Wars interrupted the supply of cane sugar in Europe, determining reactions on the part of consumers but even from politicians and savants interested in promoting and finding out an alternative source of sugar, finally identified in the beet. The article explores the subject with special regard to the Kingdom of Naples. It describes the trend in sugar consumption during the eighteenth century, the effects of the Continental Blockade on consumers’ behaviour and the enterprises (public, academic and industrial) taken in those years to produce an indigenous sugar.