El tejido de la civilización: Cómo los textiles dieron forma al mundo

by Virginia Postrel, Virginia Postrel

From Neanderthal string to 3D knitting, an “expansive” global history that highlights “how textiles truly changed the world” (Wall Street Journal)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.

“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

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Fashion, Science, Audiobook, Art, Economics

342 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may, for me, be the most surprising and delightful non-fiction book I have read in 2021!

“We hairless apes coevolved with our cloth. From the moment we’re wrapped in a blanket at birth, we are surrounded by textiles. They cover our bodies, bedeck our beds, and carpet our floors. Textiles give us seat belts and sofa cushions, tents and bath towels, medical masks and duct tape. They are everywhere.
“But, to reverse Arthur C. Clarke’s famous adage about magic, any sufficiently familiar technology is indistinguishable from nature. It seems intuitive, obvious—so woven into the fabric of our lives that we take it for granted. We no more imagine a world without cloth than one without sunlight or rain.
“We drag out heirloom metaphors—“on tenterhooks,” “towheaded,” “frazzled”—with no idea that we’re talking about fabric and fibers. We repeat threadbare clichés: “whole cloth,” “hanging by a thread,” “dyed in the wool.” We catch airline shuttles, weave through traffic, follow comment threads. We speak of life spans and spinoffs and never wonder why drawing out fibers and twirling them into thread looms so large in our language. Surrounded by textiles, we’re largely oblivious to their existence and to the knowledge and efforts embodied in every scrap of fabric.”

Postrel has written a comprehensive book that knits (yes, pun intended) various threads of history, culture and technology together. It is a tour de force, and one that I am indebted to Geoff for calling to my attention. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Sections:
Fiber
Thread
Cloth
Dye
Traders
Consumers
Innovators

This is an up-to-date evaluation that ranks the invention of string along side that of the steam engine and the semiconductor.

I understand that this book is great because it is more than a collection of facts but some of the facts are fascinating:
The need for spinning thread is one of these that captures the term “spinster” into why this was a “bottle-neck” in the production of thread, or as the author puts it, “…a problem waiting to be solved.”
The word “fustian” refers to fabric, “which used linen warp threads and cotton weft.”

It is delightful to see how much Postrel attempts to gather together in this book and how well she succeeds!
_________________

I found that there are others interested in this book at my local library and that I was going back to it often enough that it made sense to purchase a copy. Now to see if I can weave this into my concerns about current fashion and clothing practices.

5*

[Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars - This is EXACTLY my kind of history, synthesizing science, arts, business, and archaeology in a way that made my brain happy. I love leaving this kind of non-fiction feeling a greater awe of the struggles of the human family to forge a better existence on this planet

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read this year. Postrel does a great job writing an engaging story that not only walks through all of the steps of textile making but also shows the technological advances that helps boost them and the impacts (cultural, economic, and technological) that the mass availability of different kids of textiles facilitated and caused. The section on how the many European textile import/export firms became some of the first banks is just one of the many interesting nuggets. And I really liked her descriptions of anthropologists' efforts to recreate ancient textile technologies (the section of Phoenician dye techniques was particularly interesting and pungent). This was a fun, engaging, and erudite book; highly recommended!

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're interested in textiles, or simply love books full of cool facts, this is a wonderful book. It encompasses the history of textiles and textile production from ancient times all the way up to current research into making smart fibers/fabrics/clothing.

I enjoyed the entire book but the last chapter on the future of textiles was my favorite.

[Jeanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whitewashed history that glosses over chattel slavery in the cotton and indigo industry. Misrepresents the exploitation and colonization of South Asia as a gift of weaving. And is anti-indigenous.

Super yikes.

[Adam Gurri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is nothing short of a masterpiece. It combines the analytical mindset of the economic historian with the humanist sensibilities of the art historian, and the social sensitivity of the sociologist. There is not one corner of the human experience left untouched by Virginia Postrel's tour of the fibers, threads, cloth, and dye that go into making textiles, and the complex patterns of global trade that have sprung up to meet the demand for them. Above all, Postrel puts on display our creative impulses, our ceaseless quest to refine and innovate, and the universal human desire, even in the depths of historic poverty, for more than mere survival.

From craftmanship to mathematics to computation, Postrel's prose makes difficult topics accessible and accessible topics extra enjoyable. This book will challenge you but it will also provide a short, fun read. Highly recommended.

[Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did pick the audiobook because it sounded very interesting but was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Very well written non fiction

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well researched, often engaging book on the evolution of textiles throughout the world. I was surprised and delighted to tell my husband that one of his ancestors is included in this book. "In 1788, Samuel Crompton developed the spinning mule, so called because it combined aspects of Arkwright's design with the bobbins of the spinning jenny."

In fact, "the mule for the first time allowed British manufacturers to produce thread as consistently fine and strong as hand-spun Indian cotton." However, Crompton lacked the means to patent his design. He chose to make it public after receiving promises from manufacturers to pay for use of the mule.

Because it was unpatented others were able to copy it and Crompton received no royalties or compensation. Eventually, the British government acknowledged Crompton's invention and there is a statue of him in Nelson Square, Bradshawgate, Bolton, England.

Another factoid that made me happy as a knitter: "After more than ten thousand years of dominance, weaving no longer rules the textile world. Knitting has staged a coup."

Then there is cloth. I love to explore the infinite patterns and textures of all kinds of cloth. "The cultural authenticity of cloth arises not from the purity of its origin but from the ways in which individuals and groups turn textiles to their own purposes." We tell others about our values and personalities by what we wear. The patterns, colors, and prints of the fabric may even provide clues to our cultural identity.

Finally, "Sustainability has become a watchword among textile scientists." Hubby and I were at a warehouse store just yesterday. They had bed sheet sets at various price points. The prettiest, most colorful ones had the cheapest price tag.

However, we stopped and questioned which were from the most sustainable fiber, was it 100% polyester set, the Optimal Blend of Tencel™ & Cotton, or the pure earth organic cotton? We vowed to go home and do our homework before buying.

[Fran Hawthorne · Rating 3 out of 5]

If we stop to think, we know that the clothes we take for granted don't just fall onto our bodies from cotton bolls. silkworms, or the bodies of sheep. There are machines and technologies that we've vaguely heard of, like cotton gins, spinning wheels, and leather tanning.

What makes this book so fascinating is that it goes beyond the story of just making textiles and clothing -- which is already more complicated than most readers probably realize -- to show how these processes and products influenced almost every aspect of human life over centuries, from the earliest forms of trade and currency, to arithmetic, computers, language -- and, of course, slavery. To give one example: A "spinster" working at her loom, weaving intricate variations on the binary system of warp and weft, was in some ways a precursor of Bill Gates.

The book's flaws are typical of this type of nonfiction, with its focus on one basic aspect of modern life. I have no way of knowing whether the author exaggerates the importance of her chosen topic or what role was played by other areas of human culture. (For instance, medieval people traded many goods. Didn't those other goods have just as much influence on the creation of trading routes and the concept of interchangeable currency?) And there are far too many details and examples of each step in the route from raw material to designer dress. Those two --perhaps unavoidable -- flaws are what pulled down my review.

Overall, this is an important and eye-opening book, and I'm glad I read it. But I think it could have achieved its purpose as a series of magazine articles, or at any rate, in fewer pages.

[cycads and ferns · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We drag out heirloom metaphors- ‘on tenterhooks,’ ‘towheaded,’ ‘frazzled’ with no idea that we're talking about fabric and fibers. We repeat threadbare clichés: ‘whole cloth,’ ‘hanging by a thread,’ ‘dyed in the wool.’ We catch airline shuttles, weave through traffic, follow comment threads. We speak of life spans and spinoffs and never wonder why drawing out fibers and twirling them into thread looms so large in our language. Surrounded by textiles, we're largely oblivious to their existence and to the knowledge and efforts embodied in every scrap of fabric.”

Since 5,000 BCE humans carded, spun and weaved protein and cellulose fibers to produce fabric. Plant and animal products were used to produce natural dyes to color the cloth.
Nylon, the first synthetic fiber, was discovered in 1935.
“Wallace Carothers didn’t set out to create a new fiber….DuPont executives described nylon as made from ‘coal, air, and water.’”
In 1941 British chemists, John Whinfield and James Dickson, create the first polyester fibers.
“…they drew the first fibers from a ‘very discoloured polymer’….Its chemical name is polyethylene terephthalate, but nowadays we usually just call it polyester. It is the world's leading textile fiber….”

To produce vivid colors and colors that last with multiple washings, synthetic dyes are needed.
“Dyes bear witness to the universal human quest to imbue artifacts with beauty and meaning and to the chemical ingenuity and economic enterprise that desire calls forth. The history of dyes is the history of chemistry….”
In 1856 the first synthetic dye, a shade of purple called mauveine, was discovered by the 18-year-old British chemistry student, William Perkin.
“His first attempt to produce quinine (a drug that treats malaria) failed….he decided to repeat the experiment…. Again no quinine, just a black precipitate. Curious about what it might be, Perkin tried dissolving the new substance in denatured alcohol. The solution turned a striking purple….perhaps the chemical could be a dye.”
In Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon writes, “Tyrian purple, alizarin and indigo, other coal-tar dyes are here, but the important one is mauve. William Perkin discovered it in England….mauve, the first new color on Earth….”

In 1804 Joseph Jacquard patented the automated jacquard loom. The machine was controlled by a series of punch cards denoting the binary option of the weft thread, the horizontal thread, going over or under the warp thread, the vertical thread. The use of punch cards in an automated loom inspired Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage to imagine their Analytic Engine, an early mechanical calculator.
���In the first few decades of computing, the connections between the ancient code of cloth and the futuristic promise of information technology took tangible, visible form.”
In the 1960s NASA contacted the defense contractor Raytheon to develop the magnetic core memory for the Apollo space program.
“‘We have to build, essentially, a weaving machine,’ a Raytheon manager explained…. ‘You would have to send the program to a factory, and women in the factory would literally weave the software into this core rope memory….’”
This part of history, the intersection of weaving and computational memory, was also discussed in the novel Threadripper by the author Amalie Smith who writes,
“Raytheon…hires female textile workers...to pull copper threads through tiny magnetizable rings...magnetic-core memories, and for over 20 years they are the primary way of writing, storing and reading data…. For those two decades, data is something you weave. The landing algorithms on Apollo spacecraft are stored on ferrite cores and copper threads made by weavers.
When humans land on the moon, the computer loom lands with them.”


“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”
Mark Weiser
The Computer for the 21st Century
Scientific American
September 1991

[Sherwood Smith]

Thoroughly enjoyable overview of the evolution of textiles, from the bits of twisted matter found in Stone Age tools, binding them together (which is a huge leap) to more modern synthetics.

My main interest is in silk production, and to a lesser extent cotton and linen, and while a book this short covering millennia of human endeavor must necessarily skip and skim, the notes and bibliography are formidable, pinpointing exactly what I'm after.

Also, interesting ideas about math minds and the patterns in weaving.

[Camelia Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 star

The Fabric of Civilization is a history book about textiles. According to the author, history often takes for granted fiber and textiles, their importance overlooked. The Stone Age might as well be called The Age of Fabric, if soft materials like fabrics were better preserved. It is literally true that fabrics and textiles are woven into our civilization. The author says: “We no more imagine a world without cloth than one without sunlight or rain…We drag out heirloom metaphors—“on tenterhooks,” “towheaded,” “frazzled”—with no idea that we’re talking about fabric and fibers. We repeat threadbare clichés: “whole cloth,” “hanging by a thread,” “dyed in the wool.”...”

The book is organized by topics: Fiber, Thread, Cloth, Dye, Traders, Consumers, and Innovators, within each topic, loosely in chronicle order. It is mostly social history and some scientific history. A large part of the book is the textile industry during the Industrial Revolution. I especially enjoyed the reading following:
– How ancient Chinese perfected the art of silkworm raising and silk making
– How the pursuit of fabric dye played an important role in innovation in chemistry and chemical industry
– Modern day innovations of smart fabric. (It is not wearable tech. It’s just clothes.)

The book also left me with many questions:
– How raising silkworms and making silk spread to the rest of the world?
– What made Indian cotton so superior that it took a revolution for Europo to catch up?
– The author briefly mentioned the evolution of the cotton plant, but it was very unclear

Part of the book is whitewashed. It's not because of what she has included in the book, but of those she hasn't. For example, the relationship between cotton plantations in American South and slavery is glossed over, and the dark history of indigo trade is never mentioned.

[Shruthi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was very easy to listen to and I really enjoyed learning a lot of things about the history of textiles across human civilizations. However, there is a white-centric and libertarian bias to Postrel’s writing that results in some dismissive, truly single-braincell takes on the impact of textile production on the history of labor, gender roles, slavery, and European/American imperialism.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because this book was a selection by my non-fiction book group, I felt compelled to read it in its entirety and frankly had been looking forward to it. However, I found the title to be very misleading and reading some other reviews, suspect other readers might feel the same way. I expected a much deeper story of the role textiles have played in world history but what the author has done (albeit very skilfully at times, I agree) is to examine various elements of the textile world--how thread is made, how looms work, the processes of dyeing, etc....). And although it was the pages that explained spindle whorls and how to break down indigo for its use as a dye, etc. (and the author's telling of her own experiences when she tried her hand at them) that made the best reading, there seemed to be so much missing from the title's promise. (I admit that the latter chapters on technology and industrial research into 'new' textiles were just not up my alley.) I had anticipated the story behind the textiles that gave the Silk Road its name, and how it was Indian textiles that opened the doors of the spice Islands to early European adventurers, the strict dress and textile codes that societies often forced upon their citizens to preserve class distinctions, etc. (for an excellent recommendation on this topic, see The Right to Dress: Sumptuary Laws in a Global Perspective, c.1200-1800). I'm glad I read it as it had many interesting sections, but it should have had a more appropriate title.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fabulous book, one that delves into fabric in all its manifestations and into its integral place in all societies, everywhere and throughout time. Fabric is something so “ordinary” and everyday that it’s all too easy to overlook it and take it for granted, but that would be a mistake, as I now realise. This thoroughly enjoyable and meticulously researched book takes the reader on an epic journey form the Bronze Age to today encompassing the place of fabric in culture, history, trade, law, technology, sociology, economics – well, everything really. Wide-ranging and always intriguing, there’s so much to learn here, so much to ponder on. A great read.

[Suzannah Rowntree · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a fascinating, if brief and far from exhaustive, survey of the history of textiles. This is the third book I've read from Virginia Postrel and perhaps the most fascinating yet, pulling back the curtain on an aspect of life every bit as fundamental as food and just as closely tied into cultural history. Chapters on fibres, spinning, weaving, dyeing, trading, consumption, and innovation of textiles give snapshots of how humanity's need for clothing has sparked developments in chemistry, mathematics, banking, and more. After reading the book I almost have more questions than when I started out, but this was the perfect aperitif to further study.

[Hermien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating history of cloth making and how it influenced civilization.

[Anny · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful book that covered everything fabric, from fiber to consumer, from the stone age (or string age according to the author) to the modern era.

Starting from selectively breeding for cotton/sheep/silk and inventing spindle whorl (I looked it up on YouTubes, it's quite interesting), early humans finally have the means to produce a string! It took ages to spin fiber into thread and even longer until you have enough threads to weave a cloth, which explained why until very recently cloth was precious commodity.

In some places, bolts of fabric served as currency. It was lightweight, durable, and if too much were circulated people would simply used it, leading to stable inflation. In other places, cloth merchants became bankers, inventing bill of payment which became a kind of currency on its own and necessitating the creation of the stock exchange (yes, Lehman Brothers also started from textile root).

Indeed the history of human civilization were the history of fabrics, from the slavery for cotton plantations to Mongolians' thirst for precious cloths, textiles has always been and will continue to change and shape our past, present and future. Who knows, we might be wearing silk finished cotton, PET clothes or chip embedded fabric in near future.

[Selkis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy of The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much!

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textile changed the World. When I saw the title of the book on the Netgalley site I was intrigued. The premise sounds so fascinating, right? The book tells the story of textiles through the centuries of human civilization - From the first Mesopotamian city-states to the Industrial Revolution. The author talks about archaeology, economics, and the trading business. If you're interested in the production of various textiles and dyes, it's the book for you.

It's an interesting overview of the history of textiles. The discovery of new technologies, changing public opinions, trade routes and how everything is connected.

Overall, a highly enjoyable read.

[Blair · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was an attempt to explain how textiles were responsible for making the modern world.

While there were some interesting ideas about yarn and cloth being used as currency, paying taxes, encouraging courier and mail delivery services, and being fundamental to the growth of complex societies and trade (clothes, sails, tents etc. ) the book fell far short of its mission.

I liked some of the “sound-bytes” in the book, and some of the interesting facts – including the fact that it took 6 miles of thread to make a pair of jeans and 25 miles of thread to make a Roman toga. The chart of page 49 summarising the amount of time that it takes to spin a certain length of yarn was simply excellent!

I also didn’t know that the water-powered silk industry in Italy preceded the Industrial Revolution around cotton in Britain by over 200 years. The reason why silk did not spark the Industrial Revolution itself was that it was a luxury good! It did however, set up Northern Italy to be a fashion hub that exists today!

Despite these cool facts, I felt the book lacked the intellectual curiosity and deep probing into the causes and effects of textile usage, to do justice to this fascinating subject.

For example, the book did not cover the reasons specific textiles are valued or garments and made. Why do certain professions wear what they wear? What are the roles of function and fashion in the world of textiles and how does this change? I think it's a mistake to talk of textiles and not discuss fashion as a key driver of usage.

For example, why did women wear hats for a time to Church, and then stop? Did it have anything do with the ruling of the Catholic Church in the 1960s? What did that do to the milliner business?

Why do policemen wear hats? Does it make them look taller and more intimidating?

It also did not talk of urbanisation, and the roles that the garment business played in this development. American cities saw an influx of Jewish business people who became garment makers in the Schmatte trade (Yiddish for "Rag trade") at the turn of the 20th Century. Why did this happen, and what was their impact on society?

And it didn’t cover the rise of why more women sew but men are better known as tailors. I've always been puzzled by this.

Textiles are fascinating. While this book had glimmers of hope, I felt it did not dig deep enough to do justice to this incredible subject.

I was disappointed.

[Anne-Marie Archer · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An interesting and well-researched history of fabrics and how they influenced economies across the ages, but it got a bit dry in places, and a little hard to follow at times since I wasn't very familiar with all the terminology related to making textiles.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Fabric of Civilization" is a history about the far-reaching influence that textiles have had on the world. The author looked into aspects of fabric production, selling, and use that I have not seen covered in other histories about textiles. Overall, this was an interesting read, and I'd recommend it to those interested in this topic.

The author talked about how cotton, silk, wool, and flax were used to make fabrics very early on and how people improved the plants' and animals' production and quality of fiber through selective breeding and other practices. The first person to come up with the germ theory did so because he was working on curing a disease affecting silkworms. The next chapter covered spinning technologies, starting with the drop spindle and moving on to the spindle wheel, spinning jenny, and other factory machines. The third chapter covered weaving and how advanced math may have been developed by weavers creating complicated patterns, how physical codes for patterns were created in different cultures, the history of weaving patterns like brocade, and information about knitting machines.

The fourth chapter covered dying fabric and the developments in chemistry created by the demand for certain colors, from the original plant- and animal-based dyes to the synthetic dye development. The fifth chapter covered fabric merchants and how they developed things like accounting, using cloth as money, bills of exchange, and more. The sixth chapter covered how the demand for various fabrics influenced what was made and how some countries forbade certain fabrics or fashions. The last chapter covered modern innovations, from new types of synthetic thread to coatings that can be put on cloth to prevent stains and such.

I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[jaroiva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Úžasná knížka.
Hodně zajímavá historie tkalcovství a textilní výroby, a její vliv na náš běžný život. Věci, které dnes považujeme za úplně samozřejmé a vůbec si jich nevšímáme, představují celou řadu vynálezů a objevů. Sledovat tento vývoj je skoro dobrodružné. Je to asi tím, že je to také z velké části o matematice, ale kniha o tkaní mě dost nadchla. Doporučuji.

[Riley Haas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read way too many history books in my life. (Or not enough, if this book is any indication.) Few of them mentioned clothing (or any form of textiles) for any reason other than to paint a scene. The ones that did dwell on textiles at all, did so as part of bigger economic analyses and were almost always intended as textbooks or economic history. I've heard the Silk Road mentioned a thousand times but how many history books dwelled on why the Silk Road existed and how it impacted societies? If my experience is anything to go by, this fantastic book makes it clear that a major portion of human history has been ignored by most historians (and, therefore, most of us).
There are good reasons for this, some of which Postrel deals with and at least one she sort of dances around. (One very good reason: the archaeological record was not super helpful because textiles degrade faster than coins, pottery, etc.) But despite, these good reasons for historians to mostly ignore the role of textiles, it's clear that ignoring textile production and trade as part of history has been a major error. (And just a note: I do know that Postrel's book isn't the first history of textiles.) Clothing is one of those things that we just assume - we take it for granted - yet Postrel's book makes it clear that so many of our choices are informed by clothing (and other textile products). Not only did a massive chunk of humanity spend much of their lives making clothes, but textiles have been used for money and the textile industry has led to all sorts of innovations you'd never think were related.
My only criticism of the book is that it's too short. I could have used more of this entire subject and the book does make me think I should read a drier, more in-depth history at some point, one that deals with a more complete history, rather than with symbolic anecdotes.
Still, this is very worth your time.

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderfully informative book practically sings! My eyes have really been opened to a subject I've been interested in but up until now had not explored in detail. To me it's a Wow! book.

From prehistory to the current day this book goes into sumptuous detail about fabric from flax and cotton seeds to religious ceremonies to government control to nylon stockings...it's all here! Copious research obviously went into this, yet it was written in an easily accessible way, with helpful charts, glossary, photographs and illustrations.

Since the beginning of time fabric has been crucial, something we take for granted. The intelligence and chemistry involved is breathtaking. The descriptions of silk, weaving and dyes arrested my attention in particular. No wonder the colour purple was so challenging to create! Details such as ship sails and Roman garments are memorable.

Clothes send a message. They always have. Reading about various countries prohibiting different fabrics and styles is telling about attempted government control throughout history.

Also intriguing is the information above each chapter heading.

All that's required for this book is curiosity. You needn't be into textiles or fashion, just a thirst for knowledge.

Well, well worth a read. I believe this will be one of my most memorable Nonfiction reads this year...and I've read over 200 books thus far in 2020. Loved it and have already recommended to reader friends and family.

My sincere thank you to Perseus Books, Basic Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this remarkable book. Much appreciated.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Notes:

In chapter 2 Postrel explains that the pay for spinning was low, not because spinners were women, but because the product of the labour was low in value (cotton thread), and that sexism lied not in the pay but in the lack of opportunities for women to have other jobs.

BUT earlier on the same page, she mentions that female weavers made significantly less than male weavers, so it seems like both complaints are valid.

In the Consumer's chapters when discussing West African wax prints, which originated with the Dutch: "the cultural authenticity of cloth arises not from the purity of its Origins but from the ways in which individuals and groups turn textiles to their own purposes."

Priorities are clear. Even though she discusses the slave trade in great detail in terms of economics she never takes a moment of pause to consider the human factor. Never does she call it an atrocity or stop to consider the slaves as humans rather than commodities.

Later in the book she devotes two whole paragraphs to mourning the death of the inventor of polyester, but she never had time to mourn deaths of slaves or even really bring up the fact that America's was founded on cotton riches made through slavery.

It was more like, wow! a new economic system was invented! Who cares how it happened? All progress is good progress.

[Muriel (The Purple Bookwyrm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

More accurate rating: 7-7.5/10.

The Fabric of Civilization works as a decent introductory overview to the topic of the history of textiles; their production, trade, consumption and cultural significance in terms of technology.

And as an 'introductory overview', it will probably leave you wanting in some places like it did me – unless you have a truly casual interest in the subject. I personally think it could easily have benefitted from an additional 50 pages or so – even as an introductory overview – given the way the author favoured certain aspects of the topic over others. I would've appreciated greater focus on textile fibres that weren't cotton or silk, or greater focuse on textile techniques that weren't weaving.

This book also desperately needed better illustrations or diagrams (or even links to, I don't know, YouTube videos) explaining the mechanics of weaving, or even knitting. I have dabbled in weaving before, I'm a good visual thinker but all of that was explained through text and I really struggled to picture things correctly.

I also think there was something missing, here, in terms of broader anthropological and sociological analysis. Maybe that's just because my favourite kind of non-fiction, at this point, tends to be on the more academic, and ideally multidisciplinary side of things, and this book didn't exactly fit that template. There was also a certain lack of... critical thinking, I suppose, when it came to 'neoliberal consumerism' as a phenomenon – maybe (I'm willing to concede that may've simply been me reading too much into the author's tone and focus).

Still, I enjoyed reading this work of non-fiction. It was informative and (mostly) kept me engaged throughout, and I'm happy to keep it in my non-fiction library as a decent reference.

[A.L. Sowards · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so interesting! I wouldn’t have picked it up for a listen if I didn’t think I would enjoy it (despite many childhood memories of boring-for-me trips to the fabric store with my mother), but it was even better than expected. The book was arranged by topic, so one chapter was on weaving and another on dyeing and another on trade. In our day and age, it’s easy to forget how much work used to go into each piece of clothing, bedding, or sail. But having adequate textiles was once something that required enormous amounts of time. The quest for textiles has sparked wars, forged new trade routes, pushed new forms of accounting, and maybe even inspired some early mathematics (weavers needed to identify prime numbers because those warp threads wouldn’t be lifted when working on patterns). If you like nonfiction history or love fabric, I recommend this one.

Rounding up a bit to 5 stars.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabric is so ubiquitous that nowadays we take it for granted. Fast fashion has distorted its value and turned it into something cheap and disposable, instead of a labour intensive product that should be cared for and repaired whenever possible, instead of discarded.

This book goes into the origins of fabric, from the production of raw materials like cotton and silk, and the societal context surrounding it, how fabric has been used as money, weaving as a form of art around the world, the development of dyes in antiquity and synthetic ones later on, and the creation of synthetic materials that lead to most of our clothes being made out of polyester. Fabric production was and continues to be a driving force behind the development of new technologies, first with the machines used for weaving, and now by incorporating sensors that can read data from our skin and send it to our phones, or modifying materials to make them hydrophobic.

The role of fabric as a way to express ourselves individually, as a show of belonging to a group, and evidently to keep ourselves protected from the elements has been crucial in our lives from the beginning of our history, and this book details a lot of it. A tremendously engaging read.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look at broader issues surrounding fabrics

I enjoyed this book. The subject material was much broader than I expected. There was a discussion of international trade, history, and chemistry. And it was all discussed with a conversational tone. I did think that there was sometimes too much discussion of actual weaving and heddles and the like. I didn’t really start to love the book until Chapter Four on dyes, but from this chapter on, the book was excellent. Overall this book is well worth reading.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary advance reader copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.