Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary FiberIn the tradition of Mark Kurlansky's Cod and Salt, this endlessly revealing book reminds us that the fiber we think of as ordinary is the world's most powerful cash crop, and that it has shaped the destiny of nations. Ranging from its domestication 5,500 years ago to its influence in creating Calvin Klein's empire and the Gap, Stephen Yafa's Cotton gives us an intimate look at the plant that fooled Columbus into thinking he'd reached India, that helped start the Industrial Revolution as well as the American Civil War, and that made at least one bug—the boll weevil—world famous. A sweeping chronicle of ingenuity, greed, conflict, and opportunism, Cotton offers "a barrage of fascinating information" (Los Angeles Times). |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Spun in All Directions | 9 |
Star Turns | 25 |
The Barber from Preston | 39 |
Southern Exposure | 147 |
Changing Fortunes | 173 |
The Shirt on Your Back | 270 |
Fields of Conflict | 305 |
Afterword | 338 |
Glossary | 345 |
| 375 | |
Acknowledgments | 381 |
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Common terms and phrases
acres agricultural American cotton Arkwright bales became blue jeans boll weevil Boston Boston Associates calico Calvin Klein century China chintz color cotton cloth cotton farmers cotton fields cotton growers cotton mills country's created crop decades Delta denim Eli Whitney England English exports fabric farm fiber Francis Cabot Lowell hand harvest India industry insect invention King labor later Levi Strauss Levi's living looked loom Lowell Lowell Offering Lowell's machine manufacturing miles mill girls million Mississippi Monsanto nation needed never North organic cotton pants patent percent pesticides pheromone plant plantation planters pounds produced quickly Quoted in ibid raw cotton Richard Arkwright seeds slavery slaves soon South South Carolina Southern spindles spinning Strauss subsidies textile thousands thread tion took trade turn water frame weaving Whitney Whitney's women wool workers woven wrote yarn York