Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business

In 1901, Cadbury Bros. Ltd., a progressive chocolate manufacturer in England, learned that its cocoa beans from plantations in West Africa were produced by slave labor. This book is a lively account of the events surrounding the libel trial in which Cadbury sued the London Standard, following the newspaper’s accusation that the firm was hypocritical in its use of slave-grown cocoa. The story told by Lowell Satre illuminates what a stubbornly persistent institution slavery was and gives invaluable historical background to contemporary issues of business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and globalization.