Big Cotton: How a Humble Fiber Created Fortunes, Wrecked Civilizations, and Put America on the Map.
by Yafa, Stephen
- Used
- Hardcover
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Dade City, Florida, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Viking, (2005). Octavo, black boards (hardcover), gilt letters, xiv, 398 pp. Fine in a Fine dust jacket. From dust jacket: At any given time everyone on earth is wearing or using something made with cotton. That’s power. As fiber, oil, or seed, cotton finds its way into thousands of products, from lipstick to gunpowder to crackers to money. Never a stranger to controversy, the plant that has touched off wars, inspired astonishing inventions, and laid waste to entire ecosystems now pits American growers against underdeveloped nations in a fierce struggle for survivial. No other legal crop has created as much instant wealth or left such a devastating trail of human misery in the form of slavery. Circling the globe and cutting across centuries, Stephen Yafa tells the amazing story of this infinitely adaptable fiber that has -- again and again -- reinvented our world and radically altered the way we live. Domesticated simultaneously in Peru and India some 5,500 years ago, cotton was a luxury fiber in ancient Rome, a canvas for the artistry of Indian cloth makers, and a prime motive for the colonization of the New World. Alexander the Great carried cotton cloth on his back from India to Europe. Twenty centuries later, in the late 1700s, an enterprising English thief stole inventions without remorse to cobble together the apparatus that first mechanized spinning -- only to have his designs stolen by an ambitious American, who launched the country’s first factory system in 1823 at Lowell, Massachusetts. When larceny meets greed, you know you’re in cotton country. Eli Whitney’s seed-separating gin transformed the South into a sea of raw cotton and created more millionaires per capita in antebellum Natchez, Mississippi, than in any city on earth. At the other extreme, cotton manufacture in England created such horrific squalor that it directly inspired Marx and Engels to write The Communist Manifesto in protest of exploitive capitalism. Note content simply to launch the Industrial Revolution, cotton also created the phenomenon of blue jeans, transformed Levi Strauss from a horse-and-buggy rag salesman into a captain of industry, gave birth to The Gap, and made Brooke Shields and at least one bug -- the boll weevil -- world famous...
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Details
- Bookseller
- Lighthousebooks, ABAA
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- vita5750
- Title
- Big Cotton: How a Humble Fiber Created Fortunes, Wrecked Civilizations, and Put America on the Map.
- Author
- Yafa, Stephen
- Book Condition
- Used
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- Viking, (2005).
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2005
- Keywords
- Agriculture, Industrial Revolution, Biography, Culture, Cotton, Slavery.
Terms of Sale
Lighthousebooks, ABAA
Orders usually ship within two business days. Shipping costs are based on books weighing 2.2 LB, or 1 KG. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we may contact you to let you know that an extra shipping fee is required.All items are subject to prior sale. Shipping costs are $4.25 for the first volume via USPS media rate, or $8.00 via USPS Priority Mail. Each volume thereafter is an additional $1. International orders shipped USPS Priority Mail International Flat Rate Envelope, for a fee of $28.00; or otherwise, by weight. Sets, oversize and/or heavier volumes will generally cost more to ship, both domestically and internationally; we will quote a price to you when this is the case. Florida residents must add 7% sales tax. Payment may be by Check/Money Order (in US dollars), Credit Card (American Express, Mastercard, and Visa) or PayPal. All items are returnable within ten days of receipt.
About the Seller
Lighthousebooks, ABAA
Biblio member since 2006
Dade City, Florida
About Lighthousebooks, ABAA
Lighthouse Books, ABAA is a family-owned and operated book shop located in downtown Dade City, Florida, celebrating more than 40 years of business. We're open to the public Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Our specialties include Florida history and literature, Americana, literature of the South, military history (including, but not limited to, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Korean War), children's literature, antique maps, leather bindings and rare & unusual items. We have a wide variety of general stock, including a large landscape/gardening section, a great selection of Christian/church history/Bible study titles, Beat literature, fishing, aviation, maritime, Asian history, African history, European history, South Pacific, British history, archaeology, psychology, philosophy, Latin American and Caribbean history, Canadian history, discovery & exploration, art, antiques & collectibles' reference, pop-up books, railroads, hunting, fire arms, etc. About 25 per cent of our total stock is listed in our online inventory. If ever you're in the area, we invite you to come in and browse; to show our appreciation, we'll offer a 15 per cent discount off any purchases made on your first visit. The proprietor, Michael F. Slicker, is one of about 450 qualified members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, Inc., and its affiliate the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. He was also the founding president of the the Florida Antiquarian Booksellers Association and is still an active member and committee chairman. In addition to keeping regular hours at the storefront location, Lighthouse Books participate as a vender in about a dozen book fairs, antiques shows, map fairs and related events each year. One such show is The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, an annual trade show/charity benefit held in downtown St. Petersburg in the spring, that has become the oldest and largest antiquarian book fair in the Southeast; Slicker has served as Chair since its inception thirty years ago. Please contact us for more information regarding our certified appraisal services. Please visit our website: www.OldFloridaBookStore.com. Bibliophiles might also enjoy our blog, featuring articles on unusual books, author biographies, and other book related subjects:.OldFloridaBookStore.blospot.com.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
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