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I liked this book a lot. It was very educating and helped me understand the world from a different light. The author went a little on and on about some of the topics but overall, I really enjoyed the book. It sure as hells makes me appreciate the clothing that I wear a hell of a lot more.
Throughout, she presents her analysis in a narrative form, and therefore focuses on specific characters and companies to illustrate more comprehensive principles. An economist follows the life of her t-shirt in painful detail. Her touchstone for the textile lobby is Auggie Tantillo, who led some acronym-laden clothing collective. Rivoli starts in the cotton fields of Texas and ends up in Tanzania in the rag and second-hand clothing market. She spends plenty of time in Asia along the way, specifically China, and shares a somewhat dispassionate assessment of sweat shops.Rivoli spends way too much time talking about the textile lobby in the United States. Rivoli refers to them repeatedly as "Auggie Tantillo and his alphabet army."Rivoli finds an interesting balance between activists and exploitative corporations; both are needed to make markets work in an "acceptable" manner. She also does a nice job of separating political machinations from true economic principles and highlighting how complicated global trade really is.
Any student of economics knows that free trade betters all parties involved, but how many really know the intracacies of the politics involved. The author's more open minded approach to what she would find as she researched the travels of her t-shirt was refreshing, and indeed, some of the conclusions were quite surprising.
I was not disappointed. This book is required reading for students in a class on globalization in the high school where I teach, and I read it after the teacher highly recommended it.
Here, the example *is* the basis for the book, and the implications for economic theory are presented in a more subtle way. As an avid reader of books on economics, I was pleased that this book proved very different than many others.
While others take a more theoretical approach, bringing in examples along the way to demonstrate the validity of their argument, this book took the opposite approach. I found the interplay of politics and economics to be eye opening.
This book is a wonderful introduction to the complex and charged dynamics of free trade in the real world.
Upon first glance, it might appear that this book details economic aspects of asingle industry, namely that of T-shirts. Learn about theback-room political dealings that ensure that some of your clothes come fromBangladesh and Mexico instead of China, even though China could provide them forless (and why it might be a good idea to keep things that way). If there is any fault with the book, itis that the book was published in 2005 which means that the revised textiletrade agreements from 2006 have been left out. It instead offersan insightful look into several different aspects of T-shirt production,including agriculture, factory working conditions, free trade (andlack thereof), and concluding with the world-wide used T-shirt market. Luckily, that's the only fault I have with the book. Each ofthese sections could merit a book topic in its own right, but Ms. You'd be mistaken. Learn about whathappens to a used T-shirt once it's donated to the Salvation Army, and how itmight end up being sold in a Kenyan's clothing stall instead of your localthrift store.There is not a dull moment to be found in the book, and in fact seems to getmore interesting as the book wears on.
Rivoli haswonderfully combined them into a single book ripe for reading.Learn about the history of cotton production, including the rise of Americanproduction and why it's still on top. (Hint: the American government has morethan a small role, but farm subsidies aren't the major reason). A revised edition would beappreciated. Highlyrecommended.
This is easy to read and understand, written in an engaging and conversational style, with some important insights into the mysteries of crop subsidies, textile quotas and the fate of donated clothing. It's a great illustration and analysis of globalization in action.
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