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Sven Beckert illuminates the global implications of the American Civil War and its effect on the Southern cotton industry. Internationally, the Civil War created reason for profitable cotton markets, and all pieces and parts included (i.e. labor, land, and imperial interests), to evolve. Prior to 1861, the American south dominated cotton production and export across the globe. Textile manufacturers in Great Britain benefitted directly from their relationship with U.S. coastal growers and their cheap cotton, afforded by non-wage labor. “In England alone, it was estimated that the livelihood of between one-fifth and one-fourth of all people was based upon the industry, one-tenth of all British capital was invested in it, and close to one-half of all exports consisted of cotton yarn and cloth.” (Beckert, 1408) Two short years later, Union naval blockades and foreign policy conflict all but terminated British-American cotton relationships. Europe as a whole was negatively effected. Economic adaptation was vital for the survival of such a profitable business, otherwise global war may have occurred a generation earlier then it actually did. Fortunately, markets in Egypt and India filled the void, in turn generating new imperial interests decades before petroleum commanded the same degree of covetousness. As Egerton et al argued in chapter thirteen, new imperialism followed closely behind industrialization. In this case, Beckert suggests necessity generated imperialism, and adaptation formed the environment for it to flourish.
The new cotton industry would prove more expensive in the years following the emancipation of slavery in the U.S. Cotton, it seems, was much more difficult to attain when not farmed by slave labor. As Vince points out, labor wages, market fluctuations, capitalist traps, and environmental hazards changed the global cotton economy and created new avenues through which imperialist interests were able to navigate freely. Cotton, like sugar before it, spanned the Atlantic, connecting nations and creating trade networks so intertwined that an event on one Continent could mean disaster on another.