For about 900 years, from 1000 to 1900, cotton was the world's most important manufacturing industry. It remains a vast business. This book tells the history of the overwhelming role played by cotton in dictating the shape of our world. It is also a case history of how the world works.

Sven Beckert is Laird Bell Professor of American History at Harvard University. He is also the author of The Monied Metropolis: New York and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie.