Author: Pietra Rivoli

Publisher: Wiley

Comments: *Pietra Rivoli is a professor of Finance and International Business at Georgetown University. Tracing a T-shirt's life story from a Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory and back to a US storefront before arriving at the used clothing market in Africa, the book uncovers the political and economic forces at work in the global economy. The story encounters a mix of market forces and protectionism and demonstrates the importance of globalisation to fashion, as well as how some countries have benefited from globalisation such as Taiwan and Japan, some have become less poor such as China and India, and how others have seen no benefits, mostly African countries.

The backlash against globalisation which started in the 1990s, has generalised. The main story now has become environmentalism and sustainability. And indeed with the current covid-19 pandemic, globalisation as a whole is being reassessed; which is why the author did not want to produce a third edition, in spite of the topic’s burning topicality.*