Book Review and Summary (Essay Sample)

Analytical Book Review
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Institution
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Book review
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is an economic fiction written by Pietra Rivoli. The author, Pietra Rivoli, was born in 1957 and today is a professor of finance and international business Georgetown University the McDonough School of Business. The book is a first-person narrative that discusses the global economy and traces the production of cotton from Texas U.S.A. and how it finds its undisputed market worldwide. The book has been award winning work that earned the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award in 2005 and the Amazons Best Business Book in the same year.
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist examines the market, power, and politics of world trade has it origin at Texas in the cotton fields. Cotton is grown at Texas and exported to China for processing. The author narrative is motivated by a couple that had lived in Texas entirety of their lives farming cottons. The title of the book is a symbolic of what the book puts across. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy denotes the journey the cotton grown in Texas finds their way in the global market dominated by other producers of the same commodity. The author provides a lengthy preface to open up his world to the audience and give an introduction of what he will look at. He acknowledges all the people who collaborated with him in his journey to producing this work. The jacket of the book depicts a picture of the content of the book as it reflects on the title. However, the title does not have an economic or financial appeal to the audience, and if the person sees it at a glance, one may be forced to disregard its content (Rivoli, 2005). This paper provides an analytical review of this book detailing every action as it happened.
The author starts his work by describing the uniqueness of the cotton from Texas. He says that unlike the wine of France and oranges from Florida, the cotton of Texas have stood the test of time to defend its indigenous and its world market dominance. He outlines the importance of cotton of cotton in Texas in that area by claiming that Texas will never have something of such importance even the tourism. To show the effect of cotton dominance of the Texas, he expresses that it is possible her T-shirt and mine could trace their origin back to Mexico (Rivoli, 2005). This start introduces the reader and the audience to the subject matter of the entire work.
The author introduces to a resident of Texas, Nelson and Ruth Reinsch. The couple has defied the age, and Nelson, despite being 81 years old, he stands firm, tall and handsome. He has seen himself enjoy growing cotton in his life only mission four harvest when he was out during the Second World War. The world for a couple is still very interesting; this can be attributed to the returns they reap from growing cotton. Although cotton growing was once a backbreaking physical activity, today it is not and the farmers can navigate through the whims of nature and the market dynamics an yet continue profitable growing of cotton. The cottons of Texas compete with cotton from over other 70 countries around the world yet it continues to perform well, and the production per acre remains high. This has made it possible for Nelson and Ruth to stick to one occupation in their life and still continue to enjoy life (Rivoli, 2005). This chapter shows the pride of the cotton farmers in Texas in cotton and expresses how cotton growing has been a livelihood and lucrative to the farmers.
Economists argue that almost all world dominance is temporary and stories that impress concerning national industrial success typically culminate with postscripts of the comparative advantage that has shifted from their favor. She sites examples of world dominance that came to end like the shifting of consumer electronics from United States to japan to Hong Kong and to china among other dominance that faded. But for more than 200 years, the United State have been the undisputed leader of cotton growing in the world (Rivoli, 2005). United States competing with the poorest countries in the cotton production is not a satisfactory reason to explain why the American Cotton has maintained that competitive edge over that long.
The subject matter and the economic conflict between the cotton growers of other countries and the U.S.A. cotton growing practices that the book addresses form the foundation of the storyline in the book. The author stipulates this by claiming that the success and dominance of the cotton from America surprise many, and economists think that there are other factors that push for that other than favorable climatic conditions. People wonder how a basic and downstream industry like cotton growing continues to thrive under advanced service-oriented economy. In an industry like cotton, unless there are other factors that come into play, ought to be little sustainable advantage. This is so because there lack product differentiation, lack intense price competition and low barriers to entry into the industry. This led to a business professor, Michael to state that advantages are exceedingly fleeting in industries where labor cost or natural resources are important to competitive advantage. For example, cotton growing because they require less capital and are open to many nations. The author stipulates the questions that she seeks to answer, and this draws the attention of the authors to want to get the answers and stimulates interest and suspense. The questions are what explain the success of American cotton as an export product in a country with merchandise trade deficit since 1975? And what explains the U.S. cotton producers’ ability to export such a basic commodity to much poorer countries? Why there? And why was Chinese T-shirt born in Texas? (Rivoli, 2005).
The answers to these questions were presented well in the subsequent section of the book in a logical manner that enhances the understudy and stimulates interest for further reading. She writes that it was not until Oxfam; a British charity felt that they had an answer to the questions. The organization released a report indicating the American farmers employ their skills at collecting government subsidies. In 2003, the poorest countries cried foul against the richest as they watched the United States farmers continue enjoying the flourishing and booming cotton growing in Texas while theirs had no stand in the market. The claim was that the U.S. government extends huge subsidies to the cotton growers in the America blocking their routes out of the poverty and making it impossible to compete with the farmers of Texas. The author uses examples to illustrate how the extension of subsidies to farmers have earned them an edge over other global farmers and thus sidelining them in the world market competition. This is the main reason that the writers give to explain the global market dominance (Rivoli, 2005). Nevertheless, there are other underlying reasons that the author discusses that have been factors in making the T-shirts from Texas go global.
The author does well to discuss the factors that have been a major boost to the market dominance of the Texas cotton. The author uses her economic and financial knowledge to analyze which factors that could have helped the United States farmers to boost their production. She cites the farmers union as among the factors; these institutions insulate the farmers from various market forces. The farmers have had a series of policies that help them mitigate the undesired effects of the market dynamics. The education and knowledge have been another asset in setting a competitive advantage for the cotton grown in the United States. These, according to the author, are the major reasons for the competitive advantage. The author analyses this and discuss how they could have possibly impacted to market makeshift advantage and global dominance. The chapter one ends well and helps an individual and the learner know the situation of cotton farming in the United States and the sources of the market advantage that they enjoy. The chapter is simple and direct, and the employment of the narrative approach in the preparation of the story makes the story interesting (Rivoli, 2005).
The author uses the chapter two of the book to illustrate how the prolific farming of cotton took shape in the United States and happened to leapfrog the former world record producers within a short time. She gives an account of the journey the cotton farming in the United States has taken to the present day. The farming started at the time the cotton textile factories were the first one in the world. The entrepreneurial development in production of cotton cloth and yarns launched the industrial revolution in Britain. Series of technical improvements in spinning and weaving of yarns made large-scale production possible, and the manufacturing of cotton textiles moved from home to factory. She explains how the demand for the American cotton shape from the demand from England and worldwide. This happened when mass production of cotton commodities became possible due to the industrial developments and use of technology. This resulted to the reduced prices for garments and clothes making it possible for the common person to afford to dress attractively. In this case she illustrates how the ancient of cotton growing cropped from humble beginning. Ccommon citizens could not afford clothing to the time where everyone could afford a T-shirt from the cheap cotton products (Rivoli, 2005). The author complements her work through the use of direct quotes from nineteenth-century economists and historians anytime she feels appropriate.<...