The story of humanity is the story of textiles-as old as civilization itself. Textiles created empires and powered invention. They established trade routes and drew nations' borders. Since the first thread was spun, fabric has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel traces this surprising history, exposing the hidden ways textiles have made our world. The origins of chemistry lie in the coloring and finishing of cloth. The beginning of binary code-and perhaps all of mathematics-is found in weaving. Selective breeding to produce fibers heralded the birth of agriculture. The belt drive came from silk production. So did microbiology. The textile business funded the Italian Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; it left us double-entry bookkeeping and letters of credit, the David and the Taj Mahal. From the Minoans who exported woolen cloth colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to the Romans who wore wildly expensive Chinese silk, the trade and production of textiles paved the economic and cultural crossroads of the ancient world. As much as spices or gold, the quest for fabrics and dyes drew sailors across strange seas, creating an ever-more connected global economy. Synthesizing groundbreaking research from economics, archaeology, and anthropology, Postrel weaves a rich tapestry of human cultural development.
The story of humanity is the story of textiles-as old as civilization itself. Textiles created empires and powered invention. They established trade routes and drew nations' borders. Since the first thread was spun, fabric has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel traces this surprising history, exposing the hidden ways textiles have made our world. The origins of chemistry lie in the coloring and finishing of cloth. The beginning of binary code-and perhaps all of mathematics-is found in weaving. Selective breeding to produce fibers heralded the birth of agriculture. The belt drive came from silk production. So did microbiology. The textile business funded the Italian Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; it left us double-entry bookkeeping and letters of credit, the David and the Taj Mahal. From the Minoans who exported woolen cloth colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to the Romans who wore wildly expensive Chinese silk, the trade and production of textiles paved the economic and cultural crossroads of the ancient world. As much as spices or gold, the quest for fabrics and dyes drew sailors across strange seas, creating an ever-more connected global economy. Synthesizing groundbreaking research from economics, archaeology, and anthropology, Postrel weaves a rich tapestry of human cultural development.
Virginia Postrel is an award-winning journalist and independent scholar. She is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and has been a columnist for the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. She is the author of the highly acclaimed The Substance of Style and The Power of Glamour. Her research is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
"The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World chronicles
the laborious and cumulative innovations that allow cloth to play
an essential role in our comfort, cultural identity, and our
dependence on programmable functions. At times, the fabric of
society appears threadbare but, based on the global nature of
textiles, it is comforting to know that all cultures have a shared
experience. Postrel reminds us that we are all woven together with
colorful threads."--Susie Taylor, artist
"The Fabric of Civilization is more engaging and informative than
any textile science or textile history course that I studied in
college. Postrel has distilled thousands of years of the making and
manipulation of string (thread) into a comprehensible read whether
or not you have knowledge of its invention or the current
bio-engineering research. She has woven in personal experiences;
interviewed historians, computer programmers, scientists, textile
archeologists, and contemporary and indigenous artisans; and gone
behind the scenes in textile laboratories and manufacturing plants.
After reading this book, I felt like I had wandered the world for
centuries using fabric for my currency and wealth. I had won
political battles in its name. I had been sickened as well as
healed by it. And now I am an inventor synthesizing environmentally
healthy fabric by means of chemicals. My appreciation and knowledge
of how textiles make the world have been greatly
enhanced."--Marilyn Murphy, co-founder ClothRoads and former
president of Interweave
"A fascinating, surprising and beautifully written history of
technology, economics, and culture, told through the thread of
textiles, humanity's most indispensable artefacts. I loved
it."--Matt Ridley, author of How Innovation Works
"Cleanly written and completely accessible, this book opens up an
entirely new world of textiles, explaining the most ancient
archeological fabrics and the latest polymer blends that cool the
body―not warm it as textiles have done for thousands of years―with
equal verve."--Valerie Hansen, author of The Year 1000: When
Explorers Connected the World--and Globalization Began
"Expansive...The author is excellent at highlighting how textiles
truly changed the world."--Wall Street Journal
"Fascinating and wide-ranging...This is an engrossing and
illuminating portrait of the essential role fabric has played in
human history."--Publishers Weekly
"Fiber artists of any stripe, prepare for a juicy read through a
new book on textile history! Virginia Postrel's new book will turn
your old ideas about fabric and civilization down unexpected
pathways. The Fabric of Civilization is divided into chapters
loosely related to individual textile processes, such as spinning,
weaving, and dyeing, and the author points out that textiles are
the basis of our number systems, our banking, our commerce, and our
science. This book is full of stories of individuals who innovated
entire systems because of their sensitivity to textile processes.
The author actually learned to spin and weave while writing this
book, and her explanations and diagrams are spot on. Profusely
illustrated with photos and diagrams, and contains a comprehensive
bibliography. Highly recommended."--Alice Schlein, weaver, author
of Network Drafting and The Woven Pixel
"From the Stone Age to Silicon Valley, textiles have played a
central role in the history of the world. Virginia Postrel has an
encyclopedic knowledge of the subject but she imparts it with a
touch as light as Penelope's at the loom. Ambitious, erudite, and
absorbing, The Fabric of Civilization is both an education and a
pleasure to read."--Barry Strauss, author of Ten Caesars: Roman
Emperors from Augustus to Constantine
"My pick as best nonfiction book of the year...[Virginia Postrel]
offers a bold retelling of history through an emphasis on
cloth--cloth as decoration, cloth as currency, cloth as ritual and
much more. One of the most extraordinary volumes I have read in
years."--Stephen Carter, Bloomberg Opinion
"Postrel's brilliant, learned, addictive book tells a story of
human ingenuity...Her deep story is of the liberty that permitted
progress. Presently the descendants of slaves and serfs and textile
workers got closets full of beauty, and fabric for the cold, a
Great Enrichment since 1800 of three thousand percent."--Deirdre
Nansen McCloskey, author of the Bourgeois Era trilogy
"The story of technology is a story of human ingenuity, and nowhere
is this more clear than in the story of textiles: the original
technology, going beyond what we commonly think of as 'tech.' As
with many technologies, we suffer an amnesia about them when we
enjoy them in abundance, as Postrel observes; her book gives us
back our memories about this technology that we use every day
without even knowing it."--Marc Andreessen, co-founder,
Netscape
"Virginia Postrel captures the ingenuity with which people around
the globe solved the problems of raising fiber, spinning thread,
making cloth, and giving it beautiful colors. This book opens the
reader's eyes not only to the textiles that daily surround us but
also to the remarkable skills of their makers."--Jenny
Balfour-Paul, author of Indigo
"Virginia Postrel has created a fascinating history of textiles
from their Palaeolithic beginnings to the present and future―from
the earliest plant fibers plucked from weeds to synthetic fabrics
with computer chips in the threads. And why, you say, should we
examine mere cloth? Precisely because it fills more and more roles
in our lives, yet we take it for granted...Well researched and
highly readable, the book is a veritable treat."--Elizabeth Wayland
Barber, author of Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women,
Cloth, and Society in Early Times and Prehistoric Textiles
"We are taken on a journey as epic, and varying, as the Silk Road
itself...[The Fabric of Civilization is] like a swatch of a
Florentine Renaissance brocade: carefully woven, the technique
precise, the colors a mix of shade and shine and an accurate
representation of the whole cloth."--New York Times
"Textile-making hasn't gotten enough credit for its own
sophistication, and for all the ways it undergirds human
technological innovation--an error Virginia Postrel's erudite and
complete book goes a long way toward correcting at
last."--Wired
"The Fabric of Civilization is a fascinating book, and persuasive
too: by the end the case is made that 'textiles made the
world.'"--Times (UK)
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