Empire of Cotton: A Global History

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, December 2014: How important is cotton? For starters, there s a good chance that you re wearing it right now. That s true no matter where you live in the world. Cotton is everywhere, has been for a long time, and was the dominant commodity during the early years of our country. It fostered war capitalism among European nations. It helped launch the industrial revolution in England. It drove slavery. The story of cotton is the story of modern capitalism, and in Empire of Cotton, author Sven Beckert shows how a worldwide crop that came in multiple forms and was cultivated and produced in many different ways came to be dominated by the late coming Europeans, and later Americans, often through violent means, reshaping both the world economy and the world itself for better or worse along the way. Chris Schluep