Product Description

Praise for THE TRAVELS OF A T-SHIRT IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

"Engrossing . . . (Rivoli) goes wherever the T-shirt goes, and there are surprises around every corner . . . full of memorable characters and vivid scenes."
—Time

"An engaging and illuminating saga. . . . Rivoli follows her T-shirt along its route, but that is like saying that Melville follows his whale. . . . Her nuanced and fair-minded approach is all the more powerful for eschewing the pretense of ideological absolutism, and her telescopic look through a single industry has all the makings of an economics classic."
—The New York Times

"Rarely is a business book so well written that one would gladly stay up all night to finish it. Pietra Rivoli's The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is just such a page-turner."
—CIO magazine

"Succeeds admirably . . . T-shirts may not have changed the world, but their story is a useful account of how free trade and protectionism certainly have."
—Financial Times

"[A] fascinating exploration of the history, economics, and politics of world trade . . . The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is a thought-provoking yarn that exhibits the ugly, the bad, and the good of globalization, and points to the unintended positive consequences of the clash between proponents and opponents of free trade."
—Star-Telegram (Fort Worth)

"Part travelogue, part history, and part economics, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is ALL storytelling, and in the grand style. A must-read."
—Peter J. Dougherty, Senior Economics Editor, Princeton University Press author of Who's Afraid of Adam Smith?

"A readable and evenhanded treatment of the complexities of free trade . . . As Rivoli repeatedly makes clear, there is absolutely nothing free about free trade except the slogan."
—San Francisco Chronicle

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1792 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
During a 1999 protest of the World Trade Organization, Rivoli, an economics professor at Georgetown, looked on as an activist seized the microphone and demanded, "Who made your T-shirt?" Rivoli determined to find out. She interviewed cotton farmers in Texas, factory workers in China, labor champions in the American South and used-clothing vendors in Tanzania. Problems, Rivoli concludes, arise not with the market, but with the suppression of the market. Subsidized farmers, and manufacturers and importers with tax breaks, she argues, succeed because they avoid the risks and competition of unprotected global trade, which in turn forces poorer countries to lower their prices to below subsistence levels in order to compete. Rivoli seems surprised by her own conclusions, and while some chapters lapse into academic prose and tedious descriptions of bureaucratic maneuvering, her writing is at its best when it considers the social dimensions of a global economy, as in chapters on the social networks of African used-clothing entrepreneurs.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"…this book contains some useful insights into the world of PR's 'outrageous stunts' " (Management Today, August 2007)

"It brings history and economics in an enjoyable way..." (Financial Times, 21^st September 2005)

“…a fine account of how the countervailing forces of the market and protectionism conflict in combining in a single product…” (Financial Times, 30 July 2005)

"Rarely is a business book so well written that one would gladly stay up all night to finish it..."  (CIO: Chief Information Officer Magazine, June 15, 2005)

"Globalization is a hot-button topic that generates strong feelings along with images of boarded-up, independent businesses in America and exploitative sweatshops overseas. But what exactly is it? In The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, Georgetown University business professor Pietra Rivoli chronicles the round-the-world odyssey of a T-shirt, from Texas cotton-growers to an African used-clothing bazaar, to reveal how the planetary economy really works.
Along the way, we see how entrepreneurial U.S. farmers team with government-sponsored researchers--and take advantage of subsidies and trade barriers--to dominate world cotton production. Migrant workers from Chinese family farms tell why they regard low-wage jobs in Shanghai sewing factories as golden opportunities. And only in that African used-clothing bazaar do we encounter a truly free market where entrepreneurs--perhaps including some future tycoons of the 21st century--utterly rely on pure business skills and instinct. Whether you feel hurt or helped by globalization, you'll certainly understand it better after reading this fascinating account." (Entrepreneur Magazine, May 2005

"...full of memorable characters and vivid scenes..." [and that] "Rivoli excels at making connections." (Time Magazine, March 28, 2005)

"T-shirts may not have changed the world; but this story is a useful account of how free trade and protection certainly have." (Financial Times)

"The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is an excellent piece of work - a thorough, lucid and (best of all) honest examination of how politics and economics intertwine in the real world." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

“Engrossing….(Rivoli) goes wherever the t-shirt goes and there are surprises around every corner…full of memorable characters and vivid scenes” (TIME)

"Her nuanced and fair-minded approach is all the more powerful for eschewing the pretense of ideological absolutism, and her telescopic look through a single industry has all the makings of an economics classic." (New York Times)

“…Succeeds admirably… T-shirts may not have changed the world, but this story is a useful account of how free trade and protectionism certainly have.” (Financial Times)

“…a fascinating exploration of the history, economics and politics of world trade…The Travels of a T-Shirt is a thought-provoking yarn that exhibits the ugly, the bad and the good of globalization, and points to the unintended positive consequences of the clash between the proponents and opponents of free trade.” (Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

“…a readable and evenhanded treatment of the complexities of world trade… As Rivoli repeatedly makes clear, there is absolutely nothing free about free trade except the slogan.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

Review
"Part travelogue, part history, and part economics, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is ALL storytelling, and in the grand style. Globalization critics who read this book will understand why it is impossible to lift countries out of poverty without the power of free markets, while policymakers will learn the equally bracing lesson that economic progress for the wealthiest of nations means nothing without the democratic political institutions that uplift the poorest of nations. A must-read."
—Peter J. Dougherty, Senior Economics Editor, Princeton University Press, author of Who's Afraid of Adam Smith?

Customer Reviews

Fantastic, well-written, and eye-opening
Upon first glance, it might appear that this book details economic aspects of a
single industry, namely that of T-shirts. You'd be mistaken. It instead offers
an insightful look into several different aspects of T-shirt production,
including agriculture, factory working conditions, free trade (and
lack thereof), and concluding with the world-wide used T-shirt market. Each of
these sections could merit a book topic in its own right, but Ms. Rivoli has
wonderfully combined them into a single book ripe for reading.

Learn about the history of cotton production, including the rise of American
production and why it's still on top. (Hint: the American government has more
than a small role, but farm subsidies aren't the major reason.) Learn about the
back-room political dealings that ensure that some of your clothes come from
Bangladesh and Mexico instead of China, even though China could provide them for
less (and why it might be a good idea to keep things that way). Learn about what
happens to a used T-shirt once it's donated to the Salvation Army, and how it
might end up being sold in a Kenyan's clothing stall instead of your local
thrift store.

There is not a dull moment to be found in the book, and in fact seems to get
more interesting as the book wears on. If there is any fault with the book, it
is that the book was published in 2005 which means that the revised textile
trade agreements from 2006 have been left out. A revised edition would be
appreciated. Luckily, that's the only fault I have with the book. Highly
recommended.

Insights into global trade
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.

history of EVERYTHING about your t-shirt, from birth in a Texan cotton field to re-birth in a Tanzanian 2nd-hand clothing market
Allow me to provide a more descriptive title for this volume: What I did last summer + a history of cotton growing in America + a history of cotton mills around the world + a brief history of Shanghai + a brief history of child labor + a brief history of labor activism + a brief history of workplace safety regulations + a not-at-all-brief history of US textile protectionism + a characterization of the international market for used clothes. Interesting? Often.

In the course of all these histories - occasionally interspersed with a reminder that we are following Rivoli's t-shirt around the world - we jump from England to Japan to Texas to West Africa; we leap back and forth (and back and forth) from century to century. By the middle of the book, I had gotten dizzy and wished it had been a long magazine article.

But in fact, the second half is the most interesting. Rivoli gives a detailed history of textile protectionism in the United States, giving a peek into the dizzying, constantly morphing tariff and quota systems as well as the huge bureaucracy the system supports. And finally, she gives an illuminating description of what happens to the t-shirts after they get donated to the Salvation Army and how they make it to market stalls in East Africa.

Rivoli is an economist and so recognizes that her inherent leaning is toward free trade, but she argues for the value of both sides of the textile battle, both the free traders and the student demonstrators.

The first half of the book feels too long (even though it isn't that long), and Rivoli's strength is in illuminating description rather than careful analysis. But if you get bored, just skip ahead to the next chapter: There's plenty to choose from!

[I listened to the unabridged audiobook narrated by Eliza Foss, published by Recorded Books. The reading is fine, but Foss's voice is too syrupy sweet and storybookish for 8 CDs (think the voice-over narration from Desperate Housewives).]