The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy : An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli @ .::ManagementOnly.com::.

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The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade

Pietra Rivoli

Globalization

Sales rank 340,571 Customers rating

(based on 34 reviews)

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade

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

Publisher	Wiley
Release date	03/2005
Availability
Edition	Hardcover

List price	$29.95
Our price	n/a
Used price	from $4.07

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HBSWK Book Report: The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade: Book review @ Harvard Business School Working Knowledge (@ HBS Working Knowledge)
Jack Covert Selects: The Travels of a T-Shirt: This book gives Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat a run for its money as the best book written about the current globalization (@ 800ceoread.com)

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Comments by amazon customers about The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade

Really good illustrations of how markets work
I have used this book in my freshman university economics classes as a second text and really like it for illustrating how free market economics works ... or doesn't work.

Excellent blend of geopolitics, economics, and sociology
Fascinating and an easy read. Provides a counterpoint to all the anti-sweatshop propaganda, by drawing a parallel between the early days of industrialization in the US and what's happening now in some Third World countries. Just as the early New England mill workers viewed the mill as a step up and out of the farm, so do some East Asian workers view the sweatshop. Also examines subsidies to US farmers in the cotton industry. Highly recommended.

Makes One Appreciative
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.

Great concept...
An economist follows the life of her t-shirt in painful detail. 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. Throughout, she presents her analysis in a narrative form, and therefore focuses on specific characters and companies to illustrate more comprehensive principles. Her touchstone for the textile lobby is Auggie Tantillo, who led some acronym-laden clothing collective. 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.

Eye Opening, Brings Economics to Life
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. I was not disappointed! 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. Here, the example *is* the basis for the book, and the implications for economic theory are presented in a more subtle way. 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 found the interplay of politics and economics to be eye opening. Any student of economics knows that free trade betters all parties involved, but how many really know the intracacies of the politics involved? This book is a wonderful introduction to the complex and charged dynamics of free trade in the real world.