The sites of this hectic, unending production reveal an utter disregard for workers’ safety—their wages and homes reveal how abstract the term ‘labour’ is to local manufacturers, the international brands who are the buyers and the countries who are the consumers. The urban sprawls that are home to these factories and the rural desperation that sends an unending stream of workers to fill them are as important to the picture as any headline-grabbing tragedy. As Seabrook tracks individual lives of labourers, men and women like Mohammed Shahalom, Asgar, Nur Islam, Mukul, Lima come alive as flesh and blood people, not abstractions constituting ‘cheap labour’. As a seasoned journalist, Seabrook places his riveting narrative in historical context—making the link with the fires that abound in present-day Dhaka’s treacherous factories and the pauperisation of 18th century Dhaka weavers because of brutal colonial policies. The sallow-skinned ‘operatives’ working in cotton mills in 19th century Manchester are, through shared history and economy over 200 years, connected with the white poor entering Primark to pick up cheap garments produced in Dhaka today. Colonial violence is barely separated from the callous practices engendered by contemporary economic globalisation.