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Connecting the Nineteenth-Century World

substitute high wages. Technological innovation in England was also, argues Riello, a reaction to rising costs in raw materials. Between the 1770s and 1810s the price of raw cotton hugely increased. By contrast, from the latter period to the American Civil War of 1861–5 cotton prices greatly decreased due to the production of US southern plantations: ‘This was an American “plantation revolution” on a par with the European industrial revolution’ (254). By contrast, France from the late eighteenth century relied upon supplies from Anatolia and the Middle East. The raw cotton here was of a shorter staple than that grown in America, making it less suitable for mechanization. Illiberal practices such as slavery and state protectionism were crucial to the development of cotton textiles in Britain. A major characteristic of Britain and the West was their success in selling cotton textiles across the globe. This involved the creation of new trading and commercial techniques, the development of new markets and the cultivation of tastes for such goods. In this sense, cotton textiles spearheaded the growth of global trade with the British, particularly, at the forefront of this evolution. This is a model book that demonstrates not just the need to understand the global context of the history of cotton but, equally, industrialization in general.