The Fibre that Changed the World

Cotton has been a vital industry for many nations. Always it has been a vehicle for factory-based production and associated industrialization. Subsequently it has frequently served as a focus for the readjustment of mature industrial economies. This volume offers new perspectives on an industry of global significance.
These perspectives include an in-depth analysis of major trends in the history of the industry. One group of essays sets the industry in global context, a second group undertakes a detailed survey of eight different states, including the major players in the world league of cotton textile producers. The essays have been written by an international group of 15 authors.
Three large questions are addressed in this volume. How did the industry spread across the world? What impact did it have? How did its global reach change over time? In tackling these questions the authors have thrown new light upon such topics as rural manufacture, technological change, business organization and management, distributive networks and mercantile enterprise, state policies, international competition, and the industry's role in promoting economic growth.
The data and the views presented offer a range of challenges to currently-accepted interpretations, not least the depreciation of the role of the industry during British industrialisation and the myth of the destructive impact of western competition upon the craft industries of Asia.
The work concludes with a pioneering and wide-ranging historical and global bibliography of the industry which supplements the literature cited in the 18 individual essays and also serves as a comparative introduction to specialist national histories.
Volumes 1 to 13 in Pasold Studies in Textile History series may be ordered from www.maney.co.uk. Please follow the link at the bottom of this page.