Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World, by Giorgio Riello
Abstract
The move towards global history is now commonplace in history departments across the world. For scholars of international political economy, it is easy to understand the importance of transcending national boundaries in order to account for the evolution of social and economic relations across centuries. The thematic rather than regional focus of world history helps to reveal dynamics across civilizations that intricately link their evolutions, sometimes even in the absence of political decisions. Commercial relations fall in this category and a series of excellent historical studies examine economic development, social, technological and scientific evolution by focusing on specific commodities such as salt or oil. Cotton by Giorgio Riello, Professor of Global History at the University of Warwick, is an impressive work in this tradition.