Empire of Cotton: A Global History

Title: Empire of Cotton: A Global History
Author: Sven Beckert
ISBN: 9780375713965
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2015
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Condition: New
New from the publisher

History 1559488

Publisher Description:

WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZE - A Pulitzer Prize finalist that's as unsettling as it is enlightening: a book that brilliantly weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist.

"Masterly ... An astonishing achievement." --The New York Times

The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, workers and factory owners. Sven Beckert makes clear how these forces ushered in the world of modern capitalism, including the vast wealth and disturbing inequalities that are with us today.

In a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful politicians recast the world's most significant manufacturing industry, combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to make and remake global capitalism.