Early history of cotton; Climatology of cotton and its relationship to cotton production; Principal soils regions of the cotton beet; Morphology of the cotton plant; Botanical classification of cotton; Physiology and chemistry of the cotton plant; Classification of american upland cotton varieties; Culture of cotton; fertilizers for cotton; Diseases of the cotton plant; Insects of the cotton plant; Harvesting of cotton; Ginning and baling of cotton; Warehousing of cotton; Marketing and transportation of cotton; Grading and classification of American upland cotton lint; Breeding cotton; By-products of the cotton plants; Feeding value of cotton; Cotton regions of the world; History of cotton production in the United States; Production od American Egyptian cotton.

WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZE • A Pulitzer Prize finalist that's as unsettling as it is enlightening: a book that brilliantly weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist. “Masterly … An astonishing achievement.” —The New York Times The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, workers and factory owners. Sven Beckert makes clear how these forces ushered in the world of modern capitalism, including the vast wealth and disturbing inequalities that are with us today. In a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful politicians recast the world’s most significant manufacturing industry, combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to make and remake global capitalism.