Research Catalog

Empire of cotton : a global history / Sven Beckert.

Title: Empire of cotton : a global history / Sven Beckert.
Author: Beckert, Sven
Publication: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Not available - Please for assistance.	Text	Request in advance	HD9870.5 .B43 2014	Off-site

Details

Description

xxii, 615 pages : illustrations, maps; 25 cm

Summary

"The epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality in the world economy, and its making and remaking of global 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 1780, these men created a potent innovation (Beckert calls it war capitalism, capitalism based on unrestrained actions of private individuals; the domination of masters over slaves, of colonial capitalists over indigenous inhabitants), and crucially affected the disparate realms of cotton that had existed for millennia. We see how this thing called war capitalism shaped the rise of cotton, and then was used as a lever to transform the world. The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, farmers and merchants, workers and factory owners. In this as in so many other ways, Beckert makes clear how these forces ushered in the modern world. The result is a book as unsettling and disturbing as it is enlightening: a book that brilliantly weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist"--

Subject

Genre/Form

History

Note

"This is a Borzoi Book"--Title page verso.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

committed to retain

Awards (note)

Cundill Prize in Historical Literature Finalist, 2015.
Bancroft Prize, 2015

Contents

The rise of a global commodity -- Building war capitalism -- The wages of war capitalism -- Capturing labor, conquering land -- Slavery takes command -- Industrial capitalism takes wing -- Mobilizing industrial labor -- Making cotton global -- A war reverberates around the world -- Global reconstruction -- Destructions -- The new cotton imperialism -- The return of the global South -- The weave and the weft: an epilogue.

ISBN

9780375414145
0375414142
9780385353250 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2014009320
40024438050

OCLC

875554374
SCSB-11629282

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library