তৃতীয় মধ্যমাস আলোচনা স্বেন বেকার্টের শুভেচ্ছা

২০১৫এর ১০০টি গুরুত্বপূর্ণতম বইএর মধ্যে থাকা এম্পায়ার অব কটন, আমেরিকা, ব্রিটেন, জার্মানি, চিন, কোরিয়া, নেদারল্যান্ডস, স্পেন, ইতালি, তুর্কির পর সুতির ধাত্রীভূমি বাংলার প্রকাশিত হতে চলেছে।

অসামান্য এই বইতে সুতি বস্ত্রের ইতিহাসের সঙ্গে পুঁজিবাদকে বোঝা, তার ইতিহাস জানার ব্যপ্ত সুযোগ করে দিয়েছেন স্বেন।

১৮ জানু তৃতীয় মধ্যমাস আলোচনায় আমরা এই বই নিয়ে আলোচনা করব। থাকবেন সৌমিক বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়, যিনি দেশিয় তুলো চাষের কাজে প্রধানতম কাণ্ডারী, আর থাকবেন কৃষিবিদ Anupam Paul এবং আরও বন্ধু।

স্বেনের শুভেচ্ছা আপনাদের সঙ্গে ভাগ করে নিলাম।

I am delighted that Empire of Cotton has appeared in Bengali. When I spent a decade sitting in archives and libraries all around the world to research this book, it was unpredictable in what ways the work would speak to audiences. It was hence a pleasant surprise that Empire of Cotton found resonance in so many parts of the world, first in the United States and Germany, then in the United Kingdom, China, Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Turkey—and now in Bengal.

In retrospect, perhaps, I should not have been surprised about the resonance the book has had, since Empire of Cotton speaks to two themes that in recent years have been subject to lively debates the world over. Crucial was the renewed public interest in capitalism. In the wake of the economic crisis of 2008/9, debates on capitalism suddenly moved into the mainstream, with newspapers and television channels around the world debating the history, present and possible futures of capitalism. These debates involved people across the political spectrum and included such prominent figures as Pope Francis—who made capitalism a core theme of his papacy—and French economist Thomas Piketty whose work on inequality incited a lively and ongoing debate on the distributional consequences of capitalism. Empire of Cottonspeaks to many of these themes, especially by emphasizing the importance of capitalism to understanding the modern world and by telling its history not abstractly, but by charting the endlessly fascinating story of cotton, and thus looking “capitalism in action.”

Moreover, interest in global history mushroomed. Almost all historical writing during the past century has focused on the distinct histories of modern nation states—French history, Brazilian history, or Indian history, to cite only a few examples. By the twenty-first century, as people became increasingly aware of living in an ever more globally connected world, many historians began to understand that such a view of human history had many shortcomings and did not allow us to come to terms with some of the central developments of the past centuries. History beyond the nation-state became a vibrant field within the discipline of history.Empire of Cotton appeared just at the moment when public interest in global history spread. And by focusing on something so colorful, familiar and specific as cotton, many readers came to be drawn to this new way of looking at history.

Beyond this interest in global history and capitalism—an interest that stretched across many parts of the world—the book also spoke to specific concerns in particular countries. In the United States Empire of Cotton helped reignite a debate on the role of slavery in the economic development of North America—a debate that has been fueled by the persistence of severe inequalities along racial lines, the tenacity of racism, as well as the emergence of a social movement—Black Lives Matters—that catalyzed interest in the long history of enslavement and racial discrimination. In Europe, reviewers and readers concentrated on yet another set of issues, namely how much European wealth was derived from the exploitation of other regions of the world—African enslaved labor, the vast territories of the Americas,as well Asian markets, technologies and raw materials—questioning how such vast exploitations related to Europe’s current position in the world and also to current commodity chains—in textiles, for example.

I am greatly honored that the book will now also be available in Bengali. In many ways, this is a return to the roots of the story. The Bengali cotton industry is one of the world’s oldest, and its technical achievements were extraordinary. For millennia, the world’s finest cotton textiles came from there, with cloth so refined that contemporary observers compared them to “woven wind.” Over the centuries, millions of Bengali cotton growers, spinners, weavers and textile printers and painters have accumulated a vast store of technical knowledge, passed down from generation to generation—preserving to the world some of the most stunning examples of human ingenuity and skill. That story should remind all of us that the origins of the modern world are also to be found in the villages and towns of Bengal, and that its artisans have played a major role in forging that world.

This book tells some of that story; an important part of what is a narrative history of one of the world’s most important commodities. The book takes you to a huge range of places everywhere on the globe and it takes you through many centuries of history to explore how the present world came about. Along the way you meet child workers in cotton mills in New Hampshire, New York merchant families hiring slave overseers in the American South, Japanese bureaucrats trying to build a colonial cotton growing complex in Korea, West African farmers struggling to retain control over their crops, Brazilian slave-owners struggling with industrialists over tariffs regimes, Egyptian industrialists trying to build a national cotton industry under the conditions of colonialism and the growers and artisans of Bengal.

I hope you will find that journey instructive, and also enjoyable.