Losing the Thread: Cotton, Liverpool and the American Civil War

The outbreak of the American Civil War, the Confederate embargo of cotton exports, and Union blockade of cotton ports led to short-time working and significant distress in the cotton districts of Lancashire. It was a pivotal moment in the history of the global textile trade. Surprisingly, the topic has attracted little attention and been the subject of even less debate. Jim Powell has written a highly readable and sometimes polemical account that addresses this gap. In doing so, he takes a wide-ranging perspective that goes beyond the crisis of the war years to investigate the structure of the global textile trade, the strategy of industry leaders, and the relationship between capitalism and slavery. The juxtaposition of local and international events means the book will appeal to historians of Liverpool and the global textile trade alike. The focus naturally is on transatlantic trade, the American South, and cotton as an export...