On Oct. 13, The Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston welcomed history professor Sven Beckert from Harvard University to introduce his book “Empire of Cotton.” The event was held in University Hall on the second floor in room 2330, and was additionally supported by the History and Political Science Department, the College of Liberal Arts, American Studies, Applied Linguistics, the Labor Resource Center, Human Security, Global Governance, and the Department of Conflict Resolution.
Beckert’s book has won numerous prizes, including the Bancroft Prize, a prestigious award especially in the field of history. Beckert’s book was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Newsday has claimed Beckert’s work to be one of the best nonfiction books of this year.
“Empire of Cotton” has been particularly noted for its rich perspective in questioning our modern-day capitalist system. Sven Beckert warmly began by stating the premise of his argument. “First and foremost, ‘Empire of Cotton’ tries to tell history from a global perspective as it also tries to analyze a contemporary moment, capitalism. And it does so by putting a physical object, cotton, at the center of its narrative.” Beckert emphasizes that cotton is a commodity that doubles over as the symbol of capitalism as he further expands to say, “it played a vital role in expanding our global economy and changed our social systems.”
One of Beckert main ideas was global divergence. According to Beckert, global divergence is more than just economic success. In Beckert’s words, “it recasted new connections and vast territories…thanks to, the labor”. Beckert continued on with the idea that because of economic growth in the 17th and 18th century, “production of cotton in other parts of the world such as the West Indies, Brazil…did not expand not because Europeans couldn’t secure them from these parts but because they lacked administrative, legal, bureaucratic, military infrastructure power to recast peasant agriculture to the degree they required the face of powerful and social in times of need.”
During questions Beckert was challenged, as one asked from the audience, notably on behalf of the works of W.E.B Du Bois, “Would someone with Marxist or perhaps liberal ideologies [believe this]?”
Beckert responded, “Our history may be very unpleasant…of course we wish for a better history, wouldn’t it have been nice…but that’s not what happened. That said, not the entirety of capitalism is the history of enslavement and violence.”
A member of the audience interrupted, “Like what?”
In the words of Beckert, it is impossible for members of modern day society to understand capitalism from the perspective of “one time and one place—it is one human history.”