"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" (The New York Times)
The story of humanity is the story of textiles―as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture.
In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo's David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code.
Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world's most influential commodity.
Review Quotes:
"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)
"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
"Expansive...The author is excellent at highlighting how textiles truly changed the world."-- Wall Street Journal
"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
"Fascinating and wide-ranging...This is an engrossing and illuminating portrait of the essential role fabric has played in human history."-- Publishers Weekly
"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
"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
"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
"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
Virginia Postrel is an award-winning journalist and independent scholar. She is a contributing editor for Works in Progress, and has been a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, 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 has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
Basic Books
Pub Date: December 07, 2021
ISBN: 9781541617629
0.9" H x 8.2" L x 5.4" W
320 pages
paperback