Empire of Cotton: A Global History

by Sven Beckert
@Sven_Beckert

WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZE

 

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST

Winner of the Alfred and Fay Chandler Book Award

 

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. 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.
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Interview with the Author

Jaipur Bytes
The Empire of Cotton: Sven Beckert in conversation with Patrick French
3/20/19       43 min

The Book Review
Charles D’Ambrosio’s ‘Loitering’
1/1/15        38 min

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