A review by exlibris_neth
Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert

5.0

Beckert provides an economic view of world history, showing how societies and states have been entranced and allured by the "trees that bear wool," pushing for policies and developments that will help them profit from it, whether it's slavery or steam engines, tariffs or trade embargoes, international exports or outsourcing internationally. Though bewilderingly thorough, he never loses sight of that running thread of where production and consumption moves, from the "global south" to the "global north" and back again. As thorough as it is wide-ranging in scope, like any good material history should be.