The world is interconnected with the web of ideas, commerce, and culture linking the deserts of the Australian outback with the acreages of the American South, the forests of India with the cobblestones of German villages. This globalism defines the modern world and transforms economies, governments, and the private lives they shape. However, globalism was not born with the creation of the World Wide Web, vast networks of public transportation, or even Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. The advent of globalism and its political, cultural, and ecologic impacts are far older and more complex than many realize. Alfred Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 and Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton: A Global History
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This was the common form of capitalism throughout much of Imperial history (Beckert, Empire of Cotton, pg 38). War capitalism enabled European East Indian traders to impose laws over cotton and cloth producers in India to increase production and plantation owners to demand endless labor from slave laborers in the Antebellum South. Profit was achieved through coercion and created not only wealth for imperial nations but influence and power. It also allowed for almost complete control of the cotton trade from the varieties grown, quality of spun thread, and the distribution of finished cloth to diverse markets around the world (pg 114-120). “Industrial Capitalism”, capitalism based on private individuals investments and the development of companies based on wage labor instead of coercion, emerged in the 1770’s with the invention of mechanical looms, mules, and spindles which made factories viable options to mass produce textiles for public consumption (pg 81). This industrial capitalism became increasingly important especially when state led “war capitalism” was threatened as during the American Civil …show more content…
Together the texts present complimentary perspectives on the development of European Imperialism and the global economic structure. Despite their similar purposes, the texts take different structural approaches. Ecological Imperialism is intentionally written for a popular as well as professional audience. The chapters are short, the language illustrative, and Crosby incudes case studies and anecdotes to provide an emotional connection to the text. Empire of Cotton, on the other hand, is more academic. The expansive text and ample notes prove its scholarship, and it provides statistical as well as source support for its claims. This does not dismiss it from a popular audience as there is repetition to aid memory, stories to illicit emotional responses, and illustrations to define concepts, but it is not a light read by any stretch of the
This was the common form of capitalism throughout much of Imperial history (Beckert, Empire of Cotton, pg 38). War capitalism enabled European East Indian traders to impose laws over cotton and cloth producers in India to increase production and plantation owners to demand endless labor from slave laborers in the Antebellum South. Profit was achieved through coercion and created not only wealth for imperial nations but influence and power. It also allowed for almost complete control of the cotton trade from the varieties grown, quality of spun thread, and the distribution of finished cloth to diverse markets around the world (pg 114-120). “Industrial Capitalism”, capitalism based on private individuals investments and the development of companies based on wage labor instead of coercion, emerged in the 1770’s with the invention of mechanical looms, mules, and spindles which made factories viable options to mass produce textiles for public consumption (pg 81). This industrial capitalism became increasingly important especially when state led “war capitalism” was threatened as during the American Civil …show more content…
Together the texts present complimentary perspectives on the development of European Imperialism and the global economic structure. Despite their similar purposes, the texts take different structural approaches. Ecological Imperialism is intentionally written for a popular as well as professional audience. The chapters are short, the language illustrative, and Crosby incudes case studies and anecdotes to provide an emotional connection to the text. Empire of Cotton, on the other hand, is more academic. The expansive text and ample notes prove its scholarship, and it provides statistical as well as source support for its claims. This does not dismiss it from a popular audience as there is repetition to aid memory, stories to illicit emotional responses, and illustrations to define concepts, but it is not a light read by any stretch of the