by Sven Beckert
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.
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.
Reviews-
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October 13, 2014
In his latest venture into capitalism’s past, Harvard University historian Beckert (The Monied Metropolis) has produced a hefty, informative, and engaging study of cotton. Beckert persuasively shows that nothing less than a global sweep can provide a complete understanding
of how the plant’s cultivation and its thread-to-cloth production affected the growth and development of economic, political, and social systems. He examines the changes wrought by thousands of years of cotton production in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, with Europe—and England in particular—a relative latecomer to the plant’s marvels. These developments prompted the rise of “war capitalism” in the 1500s, a stage of economic development rooted in the violence associated with forcible land and labor acquisitions. This was what the Europeans excelled at: violently intruding on global cotton networks, then using their newly acquired power to further dominate and exploit the system. Moving across several millennia and touching upon every corner of the globe, Beckert’s narrative skills keep the story of capitalism fresh and interesting for all readers, especially when he introduces individuals like the British merchant Samuel Greg and Georgia plantation owner James Monroe Smith, putting human faces on sweeping historical events. Illus. -
June 15, 2014
Taking an ancient Asian trade, land claimed during the European exploration of the Americas, and forced labor claimed from Africa, European entrepreneurs of the 1700s revolutionized a key manufacturing industry while cementing imperialism and the global reach of capitalism. The industry in question was, of course, cotton, and Beckert, the Laird Bell Professor of American History at Harvard, gives us an expansive history of its cultivation, processing, and sale not simply to show how cotton manufacturing changed the world then but how it influenced where we are now.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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November 15, 2014
This ambitious book is a mostly successful attempt to write a global history of the rise and spread of cotton. Beckert's (American history, Harvard Univ.; The American Bourgeoisie) specialty is capitalism studies. His aim here is to chronicle cotton, the dominant international trade good from the 18th century onward, and show how its dissemination created one global network of production, trading, and consumption that superseded the localized networks of earlier times. The author traces this process on every continent: what he has to say about the failure of the cotton trade in some places is as helpful as what he remarks about its successes elsewhere. This is an unusually rich look at the roots of our present-day global economy and a salutary corrective to more traditional explanations of "the Great Divergence" between the industrialized, mercantile West and the rest of the world. Beckert, a lucid explainer, never oversimplifies to clarify his points. VERDICT Though replete with numbers, graphs and tables, this book is so well written that it should be valuable to both scholars and aficionados of history. There are few historical topics as relevant as how we got to where we are now. [See Prepub Alert, 5/19/14.]--David Keymer, Modesto, CA
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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-Eric Foner
Celebration for Sven Beckert's EMPIRE OF COTTON "Sweeping, ambitious and disturbing . . . "--The Editors, The New York Times Book Review, "The Ten Best Books of 2015" "A book of fascinating dilemmas about human nature that can be read with equal enthusiasm by economists and non-economists, historians and non-historians."--Carlos A. Valderrama Becerra, Expansion "Brilliant and comprehensive . . . an epic history." -Simon Lewis, Post and Courier "Written with honesty, clarity and conviction, this transformative study is much more than another jeremiad against capitalism. The text glows from its underlying proposition for changing the world that will alter forever the way you view modern history, and your own class position in it." -Dana April Seidenberg, East African "Breathtakingly comprehensive, informative and provocative." -Glenn C. Altschuler, Tulsa World "Persuasive . . . brilliant . . . Beckert's detailed narrative never scants the rich complexity of the cotton trade's impact on many different societies." -Wendy Smith, Boston Globe "Sure, spacious, and skillful . . . Beckert has no issue with a tight focus, and he uses it deftly to describe the history." -Peter Lewis, Barnes and Noble "Empire of Cotton proves Sven Beckert one of the new elite of genuinely global historians. Too little present-day academic history is written for the general public. Empire of Cotton transcends this barrier and should be devoured eagerly, not only by scholars and students but also by the intelligent reading public. The book is rich and diverse in the treatment of its subject. The writing is elegant, and the use of both primary and secondary sources is impressive and varied. Overviews on international trends alternate with illuminating, memorable anecdotes . . . Beckert's book made me wish for a sequel." -Daniel Walker Howe, The Washington Post "Masterly . . . Deeply researched and eminently readable, "Empire of Cotton" gives new insight into the relentless expansion of global capitalism. With graceful prose and a clear and compelling argument, Beckert not only charts the expansion of cotton capitalism. . . he addresses the conditions of enslaved workers in the fields and wage workers in the factories. An astonishing achievement. "--Thomas Bender, NY Times "Important . . .a major work of scholarship that will not be soon surpassed as the definitive account of the product that was, as Beckert puts it, the Industrial Revolution's 'launching pad.'" -Adam Hochschild, New York Times Book Review "Momentous and brilliant . . . 'Empire of Cotton' is among the best nonfiction books of this year." -Karen R. Long, Newsday "Compelling . . . Beckert demonstrates persuasively how the ravenous cotton textile trade in Europe was instrumental in the emergence of capitalism and draws a direct line from the practices that nourished this empire to similar elements in the production of goods for today's massive international retailers. Those who long to know more about how and why slavery took hold in Europe, Africa and the Americas will find this book to be immensely enlightening. Better still, those who live out the troubled legacy of the exploitation and enslavement of workers in the service of the cotton empire will find in it added inspiration for their continuing efforts to realize a just and more equitable society." -Ruth Simmons, President Emeritus of Brown University "Intellectually ambitious . . . a masterpiece of the historian's craft . . ." -Timothy Shenk, The Nation "A highly detailed, provocative work." -Booklist "Hefty, informative, and engaging . . ....
