إمبراطورية القطن: تاريخ عالمي

The Arab Research Center published the book Empire of Cotton: A Global History, within the Tarjuman series, and it was written by Sven Beckert. This book is one of the works that contribute to rewriting the history of capitalism and globalization from the perspective of one commodity that shaped the modern world. It is cotton. The book treats cotton not only as an agricultural crop or industrial product, but also as the hidden force that reshaped economies and political maps, and linked the destinies of continents and peoples across five thousand years, before culminating in a European empire that extended from fields to factories, and from ports to world markets. The author tells the story of the rise, control, and collapse of a world order imposed by Europe, especially Britain, over two centuries, when it succeeded in transforming the ancient world of cotton, which was an open, polycentric economy, into an empire with a single industrial center and subject peripheries. These parties were subjected to violence, confiscation, and forced labor, and were forced to abandon their local industries and specialize in the production of raw cotton, in exchange for consuming textiles manufactured in the center. This complex combination of power, violence, and the market is what the author describes as “war capitalism.”