The fiber that clothed the ancient world and reorganized the modern one — cotton's journey from domesticated plant to global commodity drove the transatlantic slave trade, industrialization in Britain, and the political economy of empire, making it the material thread connecting the most consequential transformations of the past five centuries.
Cotton seems like the most ordinary thing in the world. It is also one of the most consequential. The demand for cheap cotton cloth drove the slave trade, the industrial revolution, and the colonization of three continents. The shirt on your back has a longer and bloodier history than almost anything else you own.