The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World

About this book

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 textilesas 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 Michelangelos 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 worlds most influential commodity.