Empire of Cotton

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The epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality to the world economy, and its making and remaking of global capitalism.Cotton is so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible, yet understanding its history is key to understanding the origins of modern capitalism Sven Beckert s rich, fascinating book tells the story of how, in a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful statesmen recast the world s most significant manufacturing industry, combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to change the world Here is the story of how, beginning well before the advent of machine production in the 1780s, these men captured ancient trades and skills in Asia, and combined them with the expropriation of lands in the Americas and the enslavement of African workers to crucially reshape the disparate realms of cotton that had existed for millennia, and how industrial capitalism gave birth to an empire, and how this force transformed the world.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 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 The result is a book 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. Download Empire of Cotton – kino-fada.fr Cotton The Fabric of our lives abject human miseryIn the words of the authorThis book is the story of the rise and fall of the European dominated empire of cotton But because of the centrality of cotton, its story is also the story of the making and remaking of the global capitalism and with it of the modern worldFollowing cotton, as we shall see, will lead us to the origins of the modern world, industrialization, rapid and continuous economic growth, enormous productivity increase, and Cotton The Fabric of our lives abject human miseryIn the words of the authorThis book is the story of the rise and fall of the European dominated empire of cotton But because of the centrality of cotton, its story is also the story of the making and remaking of the global capitalism and with it of the modern worldFollowing cotton, as we shall see, will lead us to the origins of the modern world, industrialization, rapid and continuous economic growth, enormous produ...A fascinating subject and I learnt a lot The author has backed his sources with a huge 140 pages of footnotes The text itself is only 448 pages Coming in I could not wait to start but in the end found myself happy to end In my opinion as informative as this book is the author is not that good a writer His lack of economy in his words and his ability to repeat himself became annoying For example the white gold was used instead of just cotton so often it became a distraction Very earl A fascinating subject and I learnt a lot The author has backed his sources with a huge 140 pages of footnotes The text itself is only 448 pages Coming in I could not wait to start but in the end found myself happy to end In my opinion as informative as this book is the author is not that good a writer His lack of economy in his words and his ability to repeat himself became annoying For example the white gold was used instead of just cotton so often it became a distraction Very early I actually thought at times it read as a translation such was the convoluted text and the length of some sentences To have to reread long tracts just to get the point was disappointing to say the least.After reading the Acknowledgment s I suspect that the author may have done most of his own editing and I think that that was a mistake I like to think that, even though a lay...Hands down one of the best books I read this year He shows how capitalism, slavery, cotton and colonization have all been intricately connected to one another for centuries A must readI chose to read this book based on a glowing review from The Economist I am unclear why the review was glowing I have no reason to doubt the facts presented in the book In fact, it may even be a good introductory source to the history of the cotton market I had to abandon this book due to the constant historical theorizing that did not seem to hold water My review is based on reading the first 3 chapters plus the preface Beckert only showed a layman s grasp of economics and did not engag I chose to read this book based on a glowing review from The Economist I am unclear why the review was glowing I have no reason to doubt the facts presented in the book In fact, it may even be a good introductory source to the history of the cotton market I had to abandon this book due to the constant historical theorizing that did not seem to hold water My review is based on reading the first 3 chapters plus the preface Beckert only showed a layman s grasp of economics and did not engage any type of counterfactual analysis, which would have been beneficial, and he seems to try to explain all of the events via singular causes e.g cotton or war capitalism While I do not remember him saying it explicitly, Beckert seems to imply that war capitalism was...Beckert s magisterial, sweeping, yet humanized and personal examination of the role of cotton in the world is the best commodities book Salt Sugar Tea Cod etc I have ever read With a sure hand in economics, social history and world civilizations, he illustrates the creation of the modern world as 17th century war capitalism meshed thread by thread with colonialism, technology, infrastructure, slavery, mass media, foreign policy, fashion and force, fronted by the seemingly innocuous produ Beckert s magisterial, sweeping, yet humanized and personal examination of the role of cotton in the world is the best commodities book Salt Sugar Tea Cod etc I have ever read With a sure hand in economics, social history and world civilizations, he illustrates the ...This book is a one volume history of the cotton industry from the beginning I am not joking up through the heydey of King Cotton and into the modern age It is very thorough and the author appears to have read nearly everything of importance ever written about the industry This is a serious history by a Yale professor and as a result, it does not cut many corners to obtain a broad readership While it is an academic book and will rival PIketty s book for important long books that are rarely This book is a one volume history of the cotton industry from the beginning I am not joking up through the heydey of King Cotton and into the modern age It is very thorough and the author appears to have read nearly everything of importance ever written about the industry This is a serious history by a Yale professor and as a result, it does not cut many corners to obtain a broad readership While it is an academic book and will rival PIketty s book for important long books that are rarely read, this is a well written book with quite a story to tell and filled with aha moments and strange pieces of trivia.There is a lot to like here First, it provides a comprehensive history of a material that is literally...Empire Of Cotton is really two books First, it s an exhaustive exposition of the history of cotton as a textile raw material That s about 80% of the book, and by exhaustive I mean very, very exhaustive Second, and unfortunately dominating, it s a puerile, scattered, self contradictory and confused attack on the Great Boogeyman Capitalism, along with sustained criticism of anything originating in or related to European culture This book is a sort of Occupy For Eggheads But not for very Empire Of Cotton is really two books First, it s an exhaustive exposition of the history of cotton as a textile raw material That s about 80% of the book, and by exhaust...One of those books that takes the mask of the economy and exposes the ugly beast based on power and war capitalism By using cotton as a case study the author demonstrates that the invisible hand that concentrates market power in industries like cotton goes hand in hand with military force I have not seen such a strong critique of capitalism since the old days when Capitalism had serious ideological foes Definitely doesn t tell a placid story of the magic of the marketplace butabout sta One of those books that ta...This book is an exhaustive review of the role of the cotton trade as the leading edge of globalization It s very detailed, to the point of numbness in many cases Nevertheless, there is a great deal of fodder for thought here just who is it who really benefits from free tradeOne of those books helps me understand the world better.Cotton industry was the king of industries in the past, it paved the way for the development de development of many regions across the globe with war capitalism, land appropriation,...

Empire of Cotton
  • English
  • 15 February 2018
  • Hardcover
  • 640 pages
  • 0375414142
  • Sven Beckert
  • Empire of Cotton