I just finished reading a book yesterday, something I haven’t been able to say for a few months at least. The book’s called “The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy”, and that’s basically what it’s about. It’s not the ‘regular’ type of book I enjoy, since it’s non-fiction, but it was really good! Andreea recommended it to me - it was a book she had to read for her American History class - and I’m glad she did. I never thought I’d be this interested in economics, considering I took an economics class and it was relatively boring, but it’s written so well and it catches you that you can’t stop reading it.
The book is basically about an economics professor who decides to find out everything about her T-shirt’s life. It’s like an extended anecdote, and she explains all the history and economics behind every part of her story.
It starts out with her going to Florida to the souvenir store she bought her T-shirt from. From there she finds a local manufacturer who buys blank shirts from China and then prints them. She calls the Chinese supplier, and to start at the beginning, she asks where he bought the cotton from, to make the T-shirts. He said: “Texas.” Surprisingly, Texas is one of the world’s (and at times THE) largest producer of cotton. The book explains why this is, citing historic and economic reasons. From there the book follows her to China and then even to Africa, which is where a lot of used T-shirts end up for re-sale in African markets.
The book is really interesting, I found out a lot of surprising things, such as the crazy amount of products you can make from cotton or cotton bi-products, or even old T-shirt shreds. What was also really crazy was how subtle law changes in the US can have a huge effect (positive and/or negative) on other parts of the globe, and that there is a real market for used textile products.
Anyway, if you see this book anywhere, you should grab it, it’s worth the read!
Cotton ftw!
Yes. Sounds pretty interesting Hora!
Andy
May 29th, 2008