‘An interesting and important account.’ Daily Telegraph Have you ever stopped and wondered where your jeans came from? Who made them and where? Ever wondered where they end up after you donate them for recycling? Following a pair of jeans, Clothing Poverty takes the reader on a vivid around-the-world tour to reveal how clothes are manufactured and retailed, bringing to light how fast fashion and clothing recycling are interconnected. Andrew Brooks shows how recycled clothes are traded across continents, uncovers how retailers and international charities are embroiled in commodity chains which perpetuate poverty, and exposes the hidden trade networks which transect the globe. Stitching together rich narratives, from Mozambican markets, Nigerian smugglers and Chinese factories to London’s vintage clothing scene, TOMS shoes and Vivienne Westwood’s ethical fashion lines, Brooks uncovers the many hidden sides of fashion.

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A sweeping and captivatingly told history of clothing and the stuff it is made of—an unparalleled deep-dive into how everyday garments have transformed our lives, our societies, and our planet. “We learn that, if we were a bit more curious about our clothes, they would offer us rich, interesting and often surprising insights into human history...a deep and sustained inquiry into the origins of what we wear, and what we have worn for the past 500 years." —The Washington Post In this panoramic social history, Sofi Thanhauser brilliantly tells five stories—Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool—about the clothes we wear and where they come from, illuminating our world in unexpected ways. She takes us from the opulent court of Louis XIV to the labor camps in modern-day Chinese-occupied Xinjiang. We see how textiles were once dyed with lichen, shells, bark, saffron, and beetles, displaying distinctive regional weaves and knits, and how the modern Western garment industry has refashioned our attire into the homogenous and disposable uniforms popularized by fast-fashion brands. Thanhauser makes clear how the clothing industry has become one of the planet’s worst polluters and how it relies on chronically underpaid and exploited laborers. But she also shows us how micro-communities, textile companies, and clothing makers in every corner of the world are rediscovering ancestral and ethical methods for making what we wear. Drawn from years of intensive research and reporting from around the world, and brimming with fascinating stories, Worn reveals to us that our clothing comes not just from the countries listed on the tags or ready-made from our factories. It comes, as well, from deep in our histories.

Since the democratisation of the clothing industry in the early 19th century, buyers have become increasingly disconnected from the creative and human aspects of the production of clothing. Arguably clothing is now valued less for its aesthetic qualities or because of the hours spent in its making, but more for the extent to which it serves current 'fashion'. In a climate of increasing anxiety about the environmental and social impact of the contemporary global fashion industry, Rachel Worth suggests that, rather than seeking solutions only in the present, looking to history can assist in understanding better the challenges consumers face today in making decisions about the contents of their wardrobes, which, in turn, will impact on the nature of the future global fashion industry. She does not seek to offer simplistic historical solutions to contemporary problems, but explores ways in which it might be possible to bridge divides between knowledge of the past, current individual choice, and possible directions for future action. The more we know about our clothes, the less likely it is that we will wear an item of clothing only a few times before replenishing it with newer purchases that are 'on trend'. By taking ownership of our personal clothing choices rather than feeling pressurised to respond to sophisticated marketing and to 'influencers', this book suggests how we might rethink our wardrobes in philosophical and practical ways in order to create a sense of order and beauty in our lives and to wrest control back from the increasing chaos of seemingly endless choice that perpetuates unsustainable, impersonal and fast fashion.

A pioneering study of the importance of dress to the collective and individual identities of the nineteenth-century English poor.

What was it like to be poor in the Middle Ages? In the past, the answer to this question came only from institutions and individuals who gave relief to the less fortunate. This book, by one of the top scholars in the field, is the first comprehensive book to study poverty in a premodern Jewish community--from the viewpoint of both the poor and those who provided for them. Mark Cohen mines the richest body of documents available on the matter: the papers of the Cairo Geniza. These documents, located in the Geniza, a hidden chamber for discarded papers situated in a medieval synagogue in Old Cairo, were preserved largely unharmed for more than nine centuries due to an ancient custom in Judaism that prohibited the destruction of pages of sacred writing. Based on these papers, the book provides abundant testimony about how one large and important medieval Jewish community dealt with the constant presence of poverty in its midst. Building on S. D. Goitein's Mediterranean Society and inspired also by research on poverty and charity in medieval and early modern Europe, it provides a clear window onto the daily lives of the poor. It also illuminates private charity, a subject that has long been elusive to the medieval historian. In addition, Cohen's work functions as a detailed case study of an important phenomenon in human history. Cohen concludes that the relatively narrow gap between the poor and rich, and the precariousness of wealth in general, combined to make charity "one of the major agglutinates of Jewish associational life" during the medieval period.

The book is concerned with research on income distribution inequality of Chinese residents in the last 20 years of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21th century. Measuring and making clear the status of inequality of every consisting parts of normal income of Chinese residents is an important concept. First, on the basis of the statistical data and the estimated data, as well as several kinds of methods that are used to calculate income inequality and suited for the available data, the authors computed the population-income Gini Coefficients of normal income inequality respectively for China's national, urban and rural areas. Second, by using urban/rural income ratio, Theil index and others, they measured the status and trends of Chinese urban/rural gap and regional income disparity, as well as their influence on the whole income inequality. Third, by case study and decomposition analysis some main factors, which had impacts on income inequality of urban and rural residents in China, and their influence, were researched. Fourth, the authors studied and measured the status and changes of the poor population and poverty rates in rural and urban areas in China. Fifth, the trend of inequality of normal income of Chinese residents was predicted at large, and the status of distribution inequality of Chinese residents was judged.