The skyline of south Mumbai is dominated by imposing neo-gothic buildings, with ornate turrets and grinning gargoyles that might look more at home in Manchester or London than the financial capital of modern India. These incongruous edifices at first seem to be the likely result of simple colonial ambition (some might say of excess). But the impetus behind their construction actually came from a more unlikely commercial source: the global cotton trade.
The commencement of America’s civil war in 1861 cut the British empire off from its most important supply of the soft, white fibre, in turn prompting an export surge from the next best supplier: India. An economic boom began, the proceeds of which went on to fund the grand railway terminals and civic buildings of what was then called Bombay.
The best part of two centuries later, and this skyline provides just one small example of the lasting impact brought about by the material, many more of which are revealed in Giorgio Riello’s Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World.