Empire of cotton

Un repaso a la revolución industrial y al paso del "capitalismo de guerra" al capitalismo industrial, al imperialismo y a la globalización, fijándose en la principal industria en volumen y número de trabajadores: la textil, concretamente la del algodón.
Resulta muy esclarecedor cómo se basó en la esclavitud (USA, Brasil), en liquidar los pastos comunales (Reino Unido) y en una mezcla de coacción y apropiación de la tierra (India, Egipto): liberalismo como siempre basado en la violencia y aplicado a los demás, mientras nuestros valientes industriales reclamaban proteccionismo en casa.
Este libro tiene muchos datos interesantes y no esconde las terribles consecuencias del paso por las distintas fases económicas (por ejemplo, las terribles hambrunas en la India y en Uzbekistán tras obligar a los campesinos a abandonar los cultivos de subsistencia en favor del algodón), pero está fatal escrito, es tan reiterativo que se hace muy pesado. Estuve tentado de abandonarlo varias veces.

Deeply researched and global in scope. A very important world history book, because of how it elucidates key trends and recasts familiar episodes, especially industrialization and nineteenth-century imperialism. I teach high school World History, and I will be incorporating insights from the book into my classes.

The wide-spread domestic production of cotton cloth across the world before the 18th century. I realized this was true, but not the extent. Mesoamerica and China were significant sites for domestic cotton production. Understanding this seems necessary for students to grasp the enormity of the changes around the world from imperialism and industrialization.

Indian-produced cotton textiles were a key good in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. I've been incorporating this into my classes since reading [b:Selling Empire: India in the Making of Britain and America, 1600-1830|26543280|Selling Empire India in the Making of Britain and America, 1600-1830|Jonathan Eacott|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1455505026s/26543280.jpg|46542720], and I will continue to emphasize this.

Beckert's use of "war capitalism" (introduced in chapter 2) as distinct from and necessary antecedent to industrial capitalism is definitely thought provoking. Trading post empire's, colonization of the Americas, and forced labor, particularly chattel slavery, comprised "war capitalism." This corroborates a lot of recent historical work on the role of slavery in the development of capitalism. For me, this reinforced one of the main lessons from [b:The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism|14894629|The Half Has Never Been Told Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism|Edward E. Baptist|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390433357s/14894629.jpg|20548399].

The main topic that I want to develop more in my World History classes is how European, Japanese, and American colonialism forced the global countryside into the market economy on unequal terms. Millions of famine deaths in India and Brazil in the late nineteenth-century was one result of this (337). A great death toll than World War I. This has been something that I mention, but I want to incorporate this aspect of colonialism into the curriculum. Beckert closes the book by encouraging readers to adjust their perspective on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in World History:

Looked at from the perspective of much of Asia, Africa, and the Americas...the nineteenth century was an age of barbarity and catastrophe, as slavery and imperialism devastated first one pocket of the globe and then another. It is the twentieth century by contrast, by contrast that saw the weakening of imperial powers and thus allowed more of the world's people to determine their own futures and shake off the shackles of colonial domination.