Book Review: Empire of Cotton, A global history by Sven Beckert

 " This book is the story of the rise and fall of the European-dominated empire of cotton. But because of the centrality of cotton, its story is also the story of the making and remaking of global capitalism and with it of the modern world".

On European-dominated empire of cotton, "Why was it that the part of the world that had the least to do with cotton-Europe-created and came to dominate the empire of cotton" and "why, after many millennia of slow economic growth, a few strands of humanity in the late 18th century suddenly got much richer" ? "Scholars now refer to these few decades as the 'great divergence'"? 

"A focus on cotton and its very concrete and often brutal development casts doubt" on traditional explanations on Europe's explosive economic development : "more rational religious beliefs, their Enlightenment traditions, the climate in which they live, the continent's geography, or benign institutions such as the Bank of England or the rule of laws". "The first industrial nation, Great Britain, was hardly a liberal, lean state with dependable but impartial institutions as it is often portrayed. Instead it was an imperial nation characterized by enormous military expenditures, a nearly constant state of war, a powerful and interventionist bureaucracy, high taxes, skyrocketing government debt, and protectionist tariffs- and it was certainly not democratic." What really drove Europe's dominance is "Europeans united power of capital and the power of state to forge, often violently, a global production complex, and then used the capital, skills, networks, and institutions of cotton to embark upon the upswing in technology and wealth that defines the modern world". The time between 16th century and late 18th century is the phase of capitalism what author termed "war capitalism", not in the factory but in the fields, not mechanized but land- and labor-intensive, "resting on the violent expropriation of land and labor in Africa and the Americas. From these expropriations came great wealth and new knowledge, and these in turn strengthened European institutions and states - all crucial preconditions for Europe's extraordinary economic development by the 19th century and beyond".