The cotton crisis: Lancashire, the American South, and the turn to "Empire Cotton" -- "The Black man's crop": The British Cotton Growing Association and Africa -- "The scientific redemption of Africa": Coercion and regulation in colonial agriculture -- "King Cotton's impoverished retinue":...

Introduction: the American answer -- Improving nations -- A global economy -- Strategic Ethiopia -- Truman's Fourth Point -- The Ethiopian experiment -- The development decade -- Rethinking the American answer