About The Book : Cotton is here considered peculiar in that it is the only crop of importance, all of which is sold by those who produce it. It, therefore, gives rise to an enormous commerce and provides a medium of exchange that almost entirely takes the place of gold in the settlement of interstate and international balances. By it countries are bound together “in its globe engirdling web; so that when a modern economist concerns himself with the interdependence of nations he naturally looks to cotton for his most effective illustration.’’ Showing its starting growth in the orient and the occident even from the time of Alexander the great, cotton is traced as a factor in the development of ancient nations and in the rise of the modern. It strikes one as being a little strange to read in this economic treatise such captions as “The vegetable Lamb’’ and “cotton Mythology.’’ The author then gives in more detail the earliest history of the industry, referring to Hindi skill, Alexander’s trade routes, Egyptian mummies, the microscope, the transit from Rome to Spain, cotton and the Renaissance, Edward and III as the weaver king, the entrance of cotton into England and the transformation of the country. About The Author : James A. B. Scherer (1870–1944) served as the last President of the Throop Polytechnic Institute from 1908 to 1920 prior to its renaming to the California Institute of Technology in 1921. Before being asked by George Ellery Hale to serve as President of Throop, Scherer was a Lutheran minister, one of the founders of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church. He is responsible for the foundations of Caltech and helped bring Arthur Noyes and Robert Millikan to Caltech to complete the driving triumvirate.
