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CONSULTING Cotton Incorporated In the 19th century, American cotton was "King"; by 1900, it accounted for two-thirds of the world's supply. Yet the cotton trade has always been a fiercely competitive enterprise. In 1970, there were some 300,000 cotton farms in the United States; by 2000, only 30,000 remained. American cotton growers had lost over half of their market share. But then they won it back. How? Senior managers at Cotton Incorporated engaged Winthrop Group to produce an internal consulting study of the successful response of American cotton growers to competition over time. With that report, they recognized the value of a larger study, intended for a wide audience, analyzing these remarkable feats of marketing and innovation. Cotton's Renaissance: A Study in Market Innovation (Cambridge University Press), by tracing the history of the cotton industry worldwide, explains how Cotton Incorporated learned to drive demand and to adapt to a global marketplace. A study in marketing muscle, the book itself became a powerful marketing tool. Recently, Cambridge University Press reissued Cotton's Renaissance in paperback and e-book format, a testament to its enduring value and wide appeal.