The Role of Cotton in the Development of Capitalism

Producing cotton textiles was probably the single most important human manufacturing activity from about the year 1000 to the year 1900. In some ways, cotton is like the air we breathe. We need it, we must have it, but we don't think very much about where it comes from. And then by of cotton is an effort to understand how this huge industry came into being and what role it has played in the development of capitalism.