Empire of Cotton
A Global History
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Empire of Cotton
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Narrated by:
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Jim Frangione
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By:
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Sven Beckert
About this listen
Sven Beckert's rich, fascinating audiobook tells the story of how, in a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful statesmen recast the world's most significant manufacturing industry, combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to change the world. Here is the story of how, beginning well before the advent of machine production in the 1780s, these men captured ancient trades and skills in Asia, combined them with the expropriation of lands in the Americas and the enslavement of African workers to crucially recast the disparate realms of cotton that had existed for millennia. We see how industrial capitalism then reshaped these worlds of cotton into an empire, and how this empire transformed the world. The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, farmers and merchants, workers and factory owners. In this as in so many other ways, 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. The result is a book 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.
©2014 Original material by Sven Beckert. Recorded by arrangement with Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. (P)2014 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the West and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the repercussions of European colonialism in Africa remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Superb must read for everyone
- By Joy on 04-16-19
By: Walter Rodney, and others
-
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
- A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet
- By: Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 89
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A remarkable exposé & synthesis of the Ponzi scheme that capitalism is and always has been.
- By Scott on 02-10-18
By: Raj Patel, and others
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How Asia Works
- Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region
- By: Joe Studwell
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 468
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 372
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 372
In How Asia Works, Joe Studwell distills extensive research into the economics of nine countries - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China - into an accessible narrative that debunks Western misconceptions, shows what really happened in Asia and why, and for once makes clear why some countries have boomed while others have languished.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
The best economic development book I’ve ever seen
- By Jay on 02-17-20
By: Joe Studwell
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Capitalism in America
- A History
- By: Alan Greenspan, Adrian Wooldridge
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 981
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 831
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 829
From the legendary former Fed Chairman and the acclaimed Economist writer and historian, the full, epic story of America's evolution from a small patchwork of threadbare colonies to the most powerful engine of wealth and innovation the world has ever seen.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Explains a lot
- By Scott on 02-18-19
By: Alan Greenspan, and others
-
A Brief History of the Future
- A Brave and Controversial Look at the Twenty-first Century
- By: Jacques Attali
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 124
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 110
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 112
What will planet Earth be like in 20 years? At mid-century? In the year 2100? Prescient and convincing, this book is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future. Never has the world offered more promise for the future and been more fraught with dangers. In this powerful and sometimes terrifying work, Attali analyzes the past and pinpoints nine distinct periods of human history, each with its world center of power and prestige, and predicts what the tenth will bring by the end of this century.
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2 out of 5 stars
-
feels like a popular mechanics article
- By Robin on 07-11-17
By: Jacques Attali
-
Born in Blackness
- Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War
- By: Howard W. French
- Narrated by: James Fouhey
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 194
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 168
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 169
Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe's dehumanizing engagement with the "dark" continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe's yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies in the heart of West Africa.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
American History World History Our History
- By Bill on 06-13-22
By: Howard W. French
-
Open Veins of Latin America
- Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
- By: Eduardo Galeano, Isabel Allende - Foreward
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,276
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 995
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 985
Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Please up-date the addition
- By fishrock on 02-20-10
By: Eduardo Galeano, and others
-
Americana
- A 400-Year History of American Capitalism
- By: Bhu Srinivasan
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Bhu Srinivasan
- Length: 21 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 633
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 552
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 543
From the days of the Mayflower and the Virginia Company, America has been a place for people to dream, invent, build, tinker, and bet the farm in pursuit of a better life. Americana takes us on a 400-year journey of this spirit of innovation and ambition through a series of Next Big Things - the inventions, techniques, and industries that drove American history forward: from the telegraph, the railroad, guns, radio, and banking, to flight, suburbia, and sneakers, culminating with the Internet and mobile technology at the turn of the 21st century.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent history!
- By L. Maranto on 10-14-17
By: Bhu Srinivasan
-
Behemoth
- A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Joshua B. Freeman
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 246
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 209
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 207
We live in a factory-made world: modern life is built on three centuries of advances in factory production, efficiency, and technology. But giant factories have also fueled our fears about the future since their beginnings, when William Blake called them "dark Satanic mills". Many factories that operated over the last two centuries - such as Homestead, River Rouge, and Foxconn - were known for the labor exploitation and class warfare they engendered, not to mention the environmental devastation caused by factory production.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Get rid of the fake accents
- By J. R. Valery on 03-13-18
-
Ramp Hollow
- The Ordeal of Appalachia
- By: Steven Stoll
- Narrated by: Brian Sutherland
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 91
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 80
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 79
Appalachia - among the most storied and yet least understood regions in America - has long been associated with poverty and backwardness. But how did this image arise, and what exactly does it mean? In Ramp Hollow, Steven Stoll launches an original investigation into the history of Appalachia and its place in US history, with a special emphasis on how generations of its inhabitants lived, worked, survived, and depended on natural resources held in common.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Almost unlistenable
- By Golf Fan on 09-13-18
By: Steven Stoll
-
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
- Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor
- By: David S. Landes
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 21 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is David S. Landes' acclaimed, best-selling exploration of one of the most contentious and hotly debated questions of our time: Why do some nations achieve economic success while others remain mired in poverty? The answer, as Landes definitively illustrates, is a complex interplay of cultural mores and historical circumstance.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A detailed explanation
- By Kaarlis on 12-07-21
By: David S. Landes
-
Connectography
- Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
- By: Parag Khanna
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 168
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 139
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 141
In Connectography, visionary strategist Parag Khanna travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, Pakistan to Nigeria, and across the Arctic Circle to explain the unprecedented changes affecting every part of the planet. He shows how militaries are deployed to protect supply chains as much as borders, and how nations are less at war over territory than engaged in tugs-of-war over pipelines, railways, shipping lanes, and Internet cables. The new arms race is to connect to the most markets.
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1 out of 5 stars
-
Fluffy and Pretentious
- By Kurt Emery Matson on 12-01-16
By: Parag Khanna
-
The Victory of Reason
- How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success
- By: Rodney Stark
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 105
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 94
In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium. In Stark's view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and non-secular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely incredible history book!
- By Daniel on 01-02-20
By: Rodney Stark
-
The Great Leveler
- Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
- By: Walter Scheidel
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 299
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 251
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 249
Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.
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2 out of 5 stars
-
Content is not suitable for an Audiobook
- By Varun on 02-10-18
By: Walter Scheidel
-
Late Victorian Holocausts
- El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
- By: Mike Davis
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China, and Northeastern Brazil.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Mike Davis on Audible!
- By Nathan D. Backlund on 09-02-17
By: Mike Davis
-
Brazil
- The Troubled Rise of a Global Power
- By: Michael Reid
- Narrated by: Michael Healy
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 63
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 59
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Experts believe that Brazil, the world's fifth largest country and its seventh largest economy, will be one of the most important global powers by the year 2030. Yet far more attention has been paid to the other rising behemoths: Russia, India, and China. Often ignored and underappreciated, Brazil, according to renowned, award-winning journalist Michael Reid, has finally begun to live up to its potential but faces important challenges before it becomes a nation of substantial global significance.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Good short history of Brazil, lame pronunciation
- By Bubu Mungani on 07-21-19
By: Michael Reid
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Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution - the nation's original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America's later success. But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian Edward E. Baptist reveals in The Half Has Never Been Told, the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American independence drove the evolution and modernization of the United States.
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A Perfect Red recounts the colorful history of cochineal, a legendary red dye that was once one of the world's most precious commodities. Treasured by the ancient Mexicans, cochineal was sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519. Shipped to Europe, the dye created a sensation, producing the brightest, strongest red the world had ever seen. Soon Spain's cochineal monopoly was worth a fortune. Desperate to find their own sources of the elusive dye, the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans tried to crack the enigma of cochineal.
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When Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Territory, he envisioned an "empire for liberty" populated by self-sufficient white farmers. Cleared of Native Americans and the remnants of European empires by Andrew Jackson, the Mississippi Valley was transformed instead into a booming capitalist economy commanded by wealthy planters, powered by steam engines, and dependent on the coerced labor of slaves.
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Unique Read!
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Golden Horde complete history, well done
- By Amazon Customer on 03-10-22
By: Marie Favereau
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The Ghost of Freedom
- A History of the Caucasus
- By: Charles King
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 96
The Caucasus mountains rise at the intersection of Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. A land of astonishing natural beauty and a dizzying array of ancient cultures, the Caucasus for most of the 20th century lay inside the Soviet Union, before movements of national liberation created newly independent countries and sparked the devastating war in Chechnya.
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5 out of 5 stars
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fascinating story of a messy region
- By A. T. Howarth on 07-30-20
By: Charles King
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The Light Ages
- The Surprising Story of Medieval Science
- By: Seb Falk
- Narrated by: Seb Falk
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
An illuminating guide to the scientific and technological achievements of the Middle Ages through the life of a crusading astronomer-monk.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating exploration of medieval science
- By Celia on 07-05-21
By: Seb Falk
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Behemoth
- A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Joshua B. Freeman
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 246
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 209
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 207
We live in a factory-made world: modern life is built on three centuries of advances in factory production, efficiency, and technology. But giant factories have also fueled our fears about the future since their beginnings, when William Blake called them "dark Satanic mills". Many factories that operated over the last two centuries - such as Homestead, River Rouge, and Foxconn - were known for the labor exploitation and class warfare they engendered, not to mention the environmental devastation caused by factory production.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Get rid of the fake accents
- By J. R. Valery on 03-13-18
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The Many-Headed Hydra
- Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic
- By: Peter Linebaugh
- Narrated by: Cornell Womack
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
Long before the American Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a motley crew of sailors, slaves, pirates, laborers, market women, and indentured servants had ideas about freedom and equality that would forever change history. The Many Headed-Hydra recounts their stories in a sweeping history of the role of the dispossessed in the making of the modern world.
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3 out of 5 stars
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the book forgets it's audience
- By Reue on 01-08-24
By: Peter Linebaugh
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The Golden Thread
- How Fabric Changed History
- By: Kassia St. Clair
- Narrated by: Helen Johns
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 275
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 236
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 234
From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, The Golden Thread weaves an illuminating story of human ingenuity. Design journalist Kassia St. Clair guides us through the technological advancements and cultural customs that would redefine human civilization - from the fabric that allowed mankind to achieve extraordinary things (traverse the oceans and shatter athletic records) and survive in unlikely places (outer space and the South Pole).
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent for those interested in textiles
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-14-19
By: Kassia St. Clair
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Railroaded
- The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America
- By: Richard White
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 23 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 144
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
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Story4 out of 5 stars 129
The transcontinental railroads of the late 19th century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating panics in the US economy. Their dependence on public largess drew them into the corridors of power, initiating new forms of corruption. Their operations rearranged space and time, and remade the landscape of the West. As wheel and rail, car and coal, they opened new worlds of work and ways of life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Correcting the Myth of the Transcontinentals
- By Keith on 06-23-18
By: Richard White
What listeners say about Empire of Cotton
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- B
- 07-17-16
Should be titled "Empire of Slavery"
This book details the beginnings of cotton production very well. A thorough history is given up through the present age. However, when the author reaches the time period where cotton was produced in America by slave labor, he gets really bogged down and loses focus.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- jonas
- 10-21-16
Takeaways
Very comprehensive review. If nothing else you could read the first chapter/prologue and epilogue and get an appreciation for how third one plant has changed the world.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- ÿsmail H. Horozcu
- 05-22-24
long but not boring
An extremely informative reference book for understanding today's world. I also bought it as a paper book and the notes I kept were as long as a book.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Joseph J. Steffen, Jr
- 08-21-16
Too many statistics
I expected more of a story. This read like an Economics 2 treatise. Reader was dry.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 08-12-16
war capitalism, industrial slavery, global markets
technical innovation, profitable endeavors, war capitalism, industrial slavery, global markets, state and corporate collusion, financial empire
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Debora J. Watson
- 07-04-18
The real History of the Modern world
This book provides s true basis to understand the wealth of the western world and the cruelty, slavery, and dispossession of native peoples that built it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kelly Wepsiec
- 03-12-22
good work listening
This book was super informative and in depth look at the world cotton industry over time.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Robert A. Karlin
- 06-15-15
Thought confirming
A basic text on the underside of capitalism. First rate historical account of the interaction of oppression, industry and nation states.
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Landon & Sarah
- 10-27-21
A bit of a capitalist basher
The author clearly had an ax to grind with capitalism and based on what I know from other sources I think that some of his conclusions missed the mark by a good bit. However on the whole I thought it was a good book and I'm glad I listened to it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kc
- 04-20-16
history of a mammoth and neglected industry
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Few know of the power of this empire
Who was your favorite character and why?
no characters here
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
The origins of the industrial revolution
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