Why read The Song of the Shirt?

Book cover of The Song of the Shirt: The High Price of Cheap Garments from Blackburn to Bangladesh

Book description

Oh, Men, with Sisters dear! Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives! It is not linen you re wearing out, But human creatures lives! Stitch stitch stitch, In poverty, hunger and dirt, Sewing at once, with a double thread, A Shroud as well as a Shirt. --from The Song of the…

Explore

Topics

Bangladesh

Genres

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Song of the Shirt as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Tansy E. Hoskins

Author

This is an award winning book by an extraordinary social commentator who turned his anthropological eye to the Bangladeshi garment industry in the aftermath of Rana Plaza – the 2012 factory collapse that killed 1,138 people. This is painstaking and sensitive work documenting the lives of workers and the poverty and instability that drives people into garment factories. It is also a detailed explanation of how Rana Plaza was the latest in a long list of industrial homicides that stretches back to imperialism and the East India Company. It is exceptional.

From Tansy's list on The best books on workers’ rights in the fashion industry.