A review by cupiscent
Empire of Cotton: A New History of Global Capitalism by Sven Beckert

informative slow-paced

4.25

This book is full of hard truths and clear-eyed erudite outrage. At its heart sits a truth the author explicitly states in his final pages: "the importance of coercion and violence to the history of capitalism." The strongest thing I draw from this book is how fundamentally modern capitalism - our modern world - is not just built but dependent on breaking and trampling a great many people, whether through colonialism, expropriation, market-building or outright slavery. The author's ability to present history without comment, while actually commenting hugely, was very impressive. I'm not sure I could say I enjoyed this book, but it's an important and interesting topic.

(Note: there's about 200 pages of notes and index at the end of this book - I didn't whizz through it all in a day!)