Description
Book SynopsisThe keys to global business success, as taught by a T-shirt''s journey The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is a critically-acclaimed narrative that illuminates the globalization debates and reveals the key factors to success in global business. Tracing a T-shirt''s life story from a Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory and back to a U.S. storefront before arriving at the used clothing market in Africa, the book uncovers the political and economic forces at work in the global economy. Along the way, this fascinating exploration addresses a wealth of compelling questions about politics, trade, economics, ethics, and the impact of history on today''s business landscape. This new printing of the second edition includes a revised preface and a new epilogue with updates through 2014 on the people, industries, and policies related to the T-shirt''s life story.
Using a simple, everyday T-shirt as a lens through which to explore the business, economic, mor
Table of Contents
Preface ix
Prologue xvii
Part I King Cotton 1
1 How America Has Dominated the Global Cotton Industry for 200 Years 3
2 The History of American Cotton 9
3 Back at the Reinsch Farm 24
4 All God’s Dangers Ain’t the Subsidies 49
Part II Made in China 75
5 Cotton Comes to China 77
6 The Long Race to the Bottom 92
7 Sisters in Time 105
8 The Unwitting Conspiracy 120
Part III Trouble at the Border 141
9 Returning to America 143
10 Dogs Snarling Together 156
11 Perverse Effects and Unintended Consequences of T-Shirt Trade Policy 171
12 45 Years of ‘‘Temporary’’ Protectionism End in 2009—Now What? 196
Part IV My T-shirt Finally Encounters a Free Market 213
13 Where T-Shirts Go after the Salvation Army Bin 215
14 How Small Entrepreneurs Clothe East Africa with Old American T-Shirts 227
15 Mitumba: Friend or Foe to Africa? 239
Conclusion 253
Epilogue: Developments 2009–2014 262
I: American Cotton Is Still King 262
II: The Race to the Bottom Speeds Up 270
III: The Alphabet Armies March On 277
IV: Competition Heats Up in the Used Clothing Business 282
Acknowledgments 286
Notes 288
Bibliography 310
Index 335
