Maxine Bédat

This set out to be both informative and entertaining, but it was largely informative. The sentences were long and I had to reread passages often. The chapter transitions aren't always great. But this book is jam-packed with information that is painstakingly laid out. The chapter titles make sense. It never occurred to me that union members could be on boards of organizations. This book not only explores how and when clothes are made and how it's changed over history, but societal and psychological forces around it. This book addresses the April 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, something I didn't know about. The Triangle Shirtwaist Disaster, which occurred 102 years prior in the US, is repeatedly mentioned for good reasons. Wealth inequality is discussed at length. Several chapters are dedicated to what happens to clothing shipped off to Africa, which is wildly different than I was led to believe. The final chapter had concrete ideas on how to combat the current systems, and I was glad..… (altro)

Eye Opening, Yet Critically Flawed. Bedat does *phenomenal* work in this text when reporting what she has found in her investigations of trying to track even a "typical" cotton *garment* from the cotton seed to its eventual use and destruction. Using each chapter as a way to trace one particular step in the chain was truly a stroke of editing genius, as it concentrates just what is happening at that particular stage. And some of it - including the direct link, in Bangladesh at minimum, between garment factories and sex work (where in one particular harrowing tale, a source tells Bedat that when she gets in the van to be taken to a factory as a day worker, she sometimes finds herself at a massage parlor instead) - is utterly horrific. It is these sections of the book that are *so* strong that the book *had* to be rated fairly highly.

HOWEVER, when Bedat speaks almost at *all* of policy or her own opinions... well, this is when the critical flaws become apparent. To be fair, she *is* at least somewhat more balanced than many leftists, and outright points out things that ardent Bernie Sanders / AOC types won't want to hear. But in her attacks of "neoliberalist capitalism" - a running strawman throughout the narrative - ... eh, I'll be a touch gentle and go with "YMMV". If you happen to be on that side, you're going to love her commentary here. If, like me, you find yourself more an adherent of Milton, Mises, Hayek, Bastiat, etc (the so-called "Austrian School of Economics")... you're not going to like her commentary so much. The star reduction, to be clear, isn't from the fact that I don't like much of the commentary - but that I can so easily refute it, despite not being a trained economist (just a - clearly ;) - well read human :D).

And yet, the actual reporting here is simply too strong, too eye opening. This is a book that *needs* to be read for its current issues reporting, if for no other reason - and even if her commentary leads one to contemplate defenestration of the book. If you've read Hafsa Lodi's Modesty or Virginia Postrel's Fabric of Civilization (among presumably numerous other recent texts on fashion / clothing/ fabric), do yourself a favor and read this one too. Even if you haven't, do yourself a favor and read all three books. ;)

Very much recommended.… (altro)