Kona Stories nonfiction book club meets Tuesday

Kona Stories hosts a nonfiction book club discussing “Empire of Cotton” by Sven Beckert on Tuesday.

The group meets at 6 p.m. at the store. Book groups are free if books are purchased at Kona Stories, or a $5 donation is requested.

The “Empire of Cotton” was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, workers and factory owners. Beckert makes clear how these forces ushered in the world of modern capitalism, including the vast wealth and disturbing inequalities that are with us today.

In a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful politicians recast the world’s most significant manufacturing industry, combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to make and remake global capitalism. The result is a book as unsettling as it is enlightening that weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist.

Info: Brenda or Joy, 324-0350, www.konastories.com.