Empire of Cotton: A Global History (Hardcover)

from rivkat

Really ambitious attempt to track the rise of cotton and its role in the global economy and imperialism. I would have benefited from some clearer definition of what Beckert meant exactly when he discussed "war capitalism"-which basically seemed to mean conquering territories or opening them to tr...

from clifforddham

Bancroft prize, Philip Taft prize, Pulitzer prize finalist. Best seller. Professor of American history at Harvard University. Hardcover. The effects of capitalism on the landscape. "The epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality to the world economy, and its making an...

from gregdehler

Cotton stands at the center of capitalism's story. Spinning cotton to textiles fueled the earliest industrial development, first in Europe, but later, in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Cooperation between the state and business, globalization, and slavery fueled the rapid development of the cott...

from Schmerguls

5374 .Empire of Cotton A Global History, by Sven Beckert (read 11 May 2016) (Bancroft Prize in 2015) This history of cotton won a 2015 Bancroft Prize. The author did a tremendous amount of research as shown by the 148 pages of notes, but I did not think the book easy to read or well-organized. In...

from lissabeth21

Fascinating! My thinking of global economies and globalization in general were blown out of the water.