The Fabric of Civilization – How Textiles Made the World
Publication by Virginia Postrel
Online Lecture: 02.12.2021
Publication
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 author, 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.
320 pages wuth 92 Illustrations in black & white and 3 Charts
Costs: £22.99
More information about the book, a youtube video and order possibilities you can find on Virginia Postrel´s website: https://vpostrel.com/the-fabric-of-civilization
Online Talk with Virginia Postrel
The Fashion and Textile Museum in London is organizing an online event with the author in 02.12.2021 from 6pm to 7:30pm. This talk will take place on the streaming platform Microsoft Teams Live.
Ticket costs: £5.00
For booking a ticket please use this link:
https://ftmlondon.digitickets.co.uk/event-tickets/37181?catID=2868
More information about the event:
https://www.ftmlondon.org/ftm-whats-on/the-fabric-of-civilization-how-textiles-made-the-world/