"The textile and apparel trade," she writes, "is the most managed and protected manufacturing trade in U.S. history, or as one writer noted, 'the most spectacular and comprehensive protectionist regime in existence'... Trade flows in T-shirts are the result of economic forces but also the result of thousands of deals cut in Washington, Geneva, and Beijing, and politics are at least as important as markets in understanding the T-shirt's journey."Rivoli backs this thesis with convincing facts and anecdotes, and her book helps its readers begin to appreciate the complexity of the answer to the question a few Wavelength Clothing customers have asked: "Why aren't all of your t-shirts made in the USA?" I heartily recommend The Travels of a T-shirt to anyone interested in the realities of global trade, and I'll be sharing some choice excerpts in the weeks ahead.
