ISBN:
978-0-521-16670-6
Language:
English
Pages:
XXVII, 407 S.
,
Ill., Kt.
Keywords:
Baumwolle Textilie
;
Industrie
;
Handel
;
Geschichte
;
Wirtschaftsgeschichte
;
Mode
;
Design
;
Globalisierung
;
Europa
;
Großbritannien
;
Asien
;
Indien
Abstract:
"Today's world textile and garment trade is valued at a staggering $425 billion. We are told that under the pressure of increasing globalisation, it is India and China that are the new world manufacturing powerhouses. However, this is not a new phenomenon: until the industrial revolution, Asia manufactured great quantities of colourful printed cottons that were sold to places as far afield as Japan, West Africa and Europe. Cotton explores this earlier globalised economy and its transformation after 1750 as cotton led the way in the industrialisation of Europe. By the early nineteenth century, India, China and the Ottoman Empire switched from world producers to buyers of European cotton textiles, a position that they retained for over two hundred years. This is a fascinating and insightful story which ranges from Asian and European technologies and African slavery to cotton plantations in the Americas and consumer desires across the globe"-- Today's world textile and garment trade is valued at a staggering $425 billion. We are told that under the pressure of increasing globalisation, it is India and China that are the new world manufacturing powerhouses. However, this is not a new phenomenon: until the industrial revolution, Asia manufactured great quantities of colourful printed cottons that were sold to places as far afield as Japan, West Africa and Europe. Cotton explores this earlier globalised economy and its transformation after 1750 as cotton led the way in the industrialisation of Europe. By the early nineteenth century, India, China and the Ottoman Empire switched from world producers to buyers of European cotton textiles, a position that they retained for over two hundred years. This is a fascinating and insightful story which ranges from Asian and European technologies and African slavery to cotton plantations in the Americas and consumer desires across the globe. Review: '... a remarkable volume full of insight and originality ... Riello deserves a wide audience and the book will be of interest to a readership well beyond the audience for world economic history, including cultural and social history, the histories of art, design, fashion and, of course, textiles themselves.' Reviews in History (history.ac.uk/reviews) 'Mr Riello's meticulous approach and scholarly prose make for a dense work but one that is wide-ranging, beautifully nuanced and often surprising. Like its namesake, Cotton deserves a wide circulation.' The Wall Street Journal 'Reveals much about globalisation ...' Financial Times 'This is a brilliant study of two periods of globalization, centered and driven first by twelfth- to seventeenth-century Indian production of cotton textiles, and second by the gradual triumph of Europe, particularly Britain, beginning in the eighteenth century. Essential.' B. Weinstein, Choice '... strikingly broad in coverage and even bolder in the sweep of its claims, geographical, chronological and methodological ... [a] rich and elaborate work.' Eric Jones, EH.Net
Description / Table of Contents:
Introduction: global cotton and global history -- pt.1. The first cotton revolution: a centrifugal system, circa 1000-1500. Selling to the world: India and the old cotton system ; 'Wool growing on wild trees': the global reach of cotton ; The world's best: cotton manufacturing and the advantage of India -- pt.2. Learning and connecting: making cottons global, circa 1500-1750. The Indian apprenticeship: Europeans trading in Indian cottons ; New consuming habits: how cottons entered European houses and wardrobes ; From Asia to America: cottons in the Atlantic world ; Learning and substituting: printing cotton textiles in Europe -- pt.3. The second cotton revolution: a centripetal system, circa 1750-2000. Cotton, slavery and plantations in the New World ; Competing with India: cotton and European industrialism ; 'The wolf in sheep's clothing': the potential of cotton ; Global outcomes: the West and the new cotton system ; Conclusion: from system to system; from divergence to convergence.
Permalink
