Before cotton became synonymous with Soviet-era ecological disaster, Central Asia's cotton was a luxury fiber traded along the Silk Road, prized in China and Persia. This episode traces the plant's journey from ancient fields to the factories of the Russian Empire, revealing how cotton shaped regional power, labor, and identity. We follow the crop through the Arab agricultural revolution, the Timurid courts, and into the tsarist era, where it fueled a violent expansion and laid the groundwork for the Aral Sea's tragedy. Along the way, we meet the merchants, botanists, and khans who turned a humble shrub into a geopolitical weapon. A story of empire, ecology, and the threads that bind them.
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