By the middle of the 19th century, Britain was producing half the world’s cotton cloth in giant mills that dotted the valleys and dominated many towns in the north of England. The largest was Quarry Bank Mill at Styal in Cheshire, which alone met 0.6 percent of world demand. Yet not a scrap of cotton was grown in Britain. How then did Britain come to dominate global production of a cloth made entirely from material imported from the southern United States, India and Egypt? The answer lies in a set of circumstances no less complex than the finely woven, beautifully printed British muslins, calicoes and chintzes that clothed people and furnished homes everywhere.