The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World

Remember the Greek legend of Theseus and the Minotaur? King Minos of Crete has compelled Athens to supply a regular stream of sacrificial victims to a Minotaur living in a labyrinth. Athenian hero Theseus decides to put a halt to the slaughter. He volunteers as a sacrifice, smuggles a sword into the maze, and chops off the monster’s head. Still, Theseus would never have escaped the labyrinth without the aid of his (doomed) lover Ariadne, who supplies him a ball of string with which he marks his path into the maze — which becomes his path out of the maze, as well, together with the Athenians he came to rescue. Not all heroes wield blades. And many problems cannot be solved simply by hacking away at them. Their causes are complex and interconnected. They twist and turn. They are fabrics that must be unraveled, patiently and prudently, to be understood. Often, solutions come from following seemingly small threads in unexpected directions, and weaving them into something new. In her masterful new book “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World,” Virginia Postrel serves as her readers’ Ariadne — guiding them through millennia of human experience to discover fresh and illuminating insights about how cultures and economies form, how innovation occurs, and how elites and interest groups often try to inhibit that innovation in order to preserve their power and position. As Postrel points out, our thinking about social and technological change is warped by the materials that happen to survive to be studied. Scholars name historical ages after rocks and metals. Archaeologists sift through mounds of pottery shards. Textiles, which make so much of civilization possible, largely disintegrate and fade from view. In “The Fabric of Civilization,” Postrel makes the unseen visible again. “What we usually call the Stone Age could just as easily be called the String Age,” she points out. “The two prehistoric technologies were literally intertwined.” Speaking of being warped, that word was itself derived from making textiles. Imagine a weaver’s loom. The warp is the yarn stretched lengthwise across it. The weft is the yarn woven over and under the warp to create the fabric. In the process, the warp is pulled and bent, which is how the word took on a new meaning. Postrel works the metaphor throughout “The Fabric of Civilization.” Stretched across her writer’s loom are fascinating chapter yarns about the origins of fiber, the spinning of thread, the weaving and dying of cloth, and the rise of traders, consumers, and innovators whose talents and choices helped create our modern world. I found the chapter on dyes especially revealing. In our clothes, tools, and furnishings, we’ve always cared about more than just functionality. We relish texture and color. We use them to express ideas or signal status. “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,” she writes, adding that to a surprisingly large extent “the history of dyes is the history of chemistry.” The connection between the textile trade and scientific progress is one of the intellectual wefts readers will discover woven throughout the chapters of the book. Another is abuse of power. Whether it is the use of slaves or other exploited workers to produce fiber on a massive scale, the use of government regulation to suppress imported fabrics, or the use of violence to destroy labor-saving machines, the story of textiles features a plot full of villainous characters. But it also features many heroes, following more Ariadne’s pattern than that of Theseus. Postrel’s book chronicles “the achievements of inventors, artists, and laborers, the longings of scientists and consumers, the initiative of explorers and entrepreneurs.” These heroes came in every color, espousing every creed, from every corner of the earth. They pursued their own ends. Although there was no concerted design, a pattern emerged. It was the very fabric of civilization itself, “a tapestry woven from countless brilliant threads.”

I got this book for my wife, who worked in clothing, for Christmas, and ended up reading it myself. It's a work of genius that far exceeds its own scope. I had no idea what a colossal part of history, industry, and science textiles have been. As an engineer who works in industry, I think it's insane how little attention this gets. A+.

I learned so much from reading this and realize now how much we take for granted about textiles in our daily lives and how they shaped our world.

Amazing amount of research and enjoyable information. Unfortunately the typeface was very tiny and so I had to also locate an electronic copy of the book.

I, like many other reviewers, heard about this book from Hank Green, but I'm embarrassed I didn't know about it beforehand as a lifelong textile artist. If you have even a passing interest in anything sewing, yarn or needlework, this is your book. I recommended it to other people in my life, which I rarely do. The writing is exceptionally easy to read, flows easily from one topic and antidote to another, and distills a lot of technical information down to understandable points. While i knew about a lot of the things mentioned in this book, my own understanding was increased and it felt like I was going on an adventurous educational, textile tour of the world. However, the real brilliance of this work is the historical and social underpinnings of all human activity to get to where we are - unappreciative yet totally dependent on a technology most people couldn't interact with on the most basic level. (Most people can't sew on a button.) This kind of awareness can only be helpful, if for no other reason than the conversation it sparks.

Expecting an overview of a narrow, “niche” topic, I was quite surprised at the vast significance of fabric to the history of mankind. Textiles are so woven (no pun) into everyday existence, that it is easily overlooked for the fundamentally important technology that it is, and which by the way, pre-dates agriculture. Prehistoric string, rope, twine, netting, baggage, clothing, etc. Not only precede the stone age (which required such in order to craft stone age tools), but are so ubiquitous as to be overlooked in their historical importance in the evolution of human trade and technology – until this book. I literally learned something new on every page. For example, the first “wheel” invented by man was a spindle for weaving, rather than a load-bearing item. Our very language teams with phraseology derived from the process of weaving. There are nuggets on the processes and technology of fabric, various techniques of production, sources, (cotton, silk, flax, synthetics), dying and coloring, trade, and recent innovations. The book is well written, moves along at a comfortable pace (erudite but not at all pedantic), is richly illustrated and includes extensive biographical notes. Very happy to have added this layer of historical and technical understanding…a perfect gift for the armchair scholar.

This came across my Amazon feed and knowing that computer programming owed a lot to the Jacarde loom, thought I'd give it a shot. I was definitely not disappointed! Very informative, well researched, and well organized—but more importantly, well written and fun to read! I bought a copy for my mother, too!

I got the recommendation someplace else. Youtube I think. Seemed like it could be worth a read. I am not super into history but I found the tales of clothing interesting. It is amazing how much the thread itself weaves it way into our culture, our business and finances, as well as science and technology.

Ok

Well written, full of fascinating information, yet easy to read.

I'm a textile artist and loved this book , well written and fascinating

Fascinante o mundo dos fios! E desde sempre estão circulando na terra.

Great book.