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Beckert endeavors to tell the history of the capitalism's genesis by focusing on cotton textile production through both chattel slavery (in cultivation) and wage labor (in manufacturing).
Marx considered the production of cotton textiles in Britain to be the paradigmatic capitalist industry ("without slavery you have not cotton, without cotton you have no modern industry"). Per Marx, this capitalist mode of production was distinguished by widespread market dependence, the production of commodity outputs with commodity inputs, and a technological dynamism that culiminated in machinofacture (the production of machines by means of machines).
Beckert wants to explain why the industrial revolution occurred in the specific place (Britain) and specific time (~1780s) that it did. Beckert argues that we can only satisfactorily explain the timing and location of the industrial revolution by understanding the "war capitalism" that laid the foundation for it.
Beckert's answer differs from the answer given by some other historians who take their cue from Marx, like Robert Brenner or John Clegg.
John Clegg critiques Beckert, among others, in a 2015 article
(Page 58)
Chapter 2: Building War Capitalism
Chapter 3: Wages of War Capitalism
Chapter 4: Capturing Labor, Conquering Land
Chapter 5: Slavery Takes Command
@book{beckert2014empire,
title={Empire of Cotton: A Global History},
author={Beckert, S.},
isbn={9780375713965},
lccn={2014009320},
series={A Borzoi book},
url={https://books.google.com/books?id=kIPZCwAAQBAJ},
year={2014},
publisher={Vintage Books}
}
Reading about Capitalism and Slavery