San Antonio College Library

This book explores the fascinating history and present-day practices associated with cotton. It tells the story of commercial and cultural enterprise, of war between East and West, of technological and industrial revolution, social modernisation, colonialism and slavery. And yet cotton remains one of the most significant mass commodities today. Cotton's history and track record on labour conditions and the environment have tarnished its history and...

From its beginnings, American Cotton Growers strove toward ever more effective processing and marketing of the cotton grown on the High Plains. The men who were the driving force behind ACG realized what enormous benefits were possible if the cotton that was grown here and ginned here could also be processed, spun, and woven into fabric before it was shipped elsewhere. Transforming their vision into the construction and successful operation of a denim...

Read about the importance of cotton in America's history and learn about the lives of people who picked it and worked with it.

"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...

"This book brings together contributors from a wide range of disciplines to explore the importance of cotton as a major resource for US fashion businesses. It is rooted in a lengthy investigative research project that deployed undergraduate and graduate students and faculty researchers to US fashion businesses that rely on cotton to make their garments with the goal of better understanding how such a key resource is sourced, priced, transported, manipulated,...

"The epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality in the world economy, and its making and remaking of global capitalism. Sven Beckert's rich, fascinating book tells the story of how, in a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful statesmen recast the world's most significant manufacturing industry combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to change the world. Here...