The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World Hardcover – November 10, 2020

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.”

Excellent coverage of the field. Well written and easy to understand.

Great book good pre history ancestral needs and invention

I've only read parts of this book. It isn't a fast read but more of an academic resource type read that focuses on the impact on society that fabric has had or reflected. I write about fabrics for publications so I knew some of this history, but never really thought about the implications like the author has. It made me view the fabrics differently, but also society. As a woman, there are time when history really angers me because we really haven't made as much progress as I would wish.

This was not the book I expected, but I loved it all the same. I had wondered how it was that textiles evolved--how we went from creatures covering--and adorning--our bodies with animal skins to beings who wove our garments from growing things.Instead, I was treated to a carefully-constructed argument, meticulously researched across human history and with references to a great variety of cultures, about how our ancestors--and even now our peers--attempts to improve those fabrics that adorn us influenced other technologies and so advanced civilization.Postrel starts with the various components of converting plant fiber into human clothing: carding and spinning, weaving, and dyeing, and then finally to commerce and innovation. The stuff can get technical at times--during the writing, she set up a loom in her office so as to experience the process of weaving--but it all serves her argument.It was a process of millennia to improve from the time-consuming process of the first woven garments to the abundance of clothing cluttering our closets today. "We suffer," Postrel observes in her Afterword, "textile amnesia because we enjoy textile abundance."Indeed.When I was moving last month from an apartment to a house and sorting through my closet, taking the unneeded garments to Goodwill where I saw a superabundance of donations. And that just on one day. At one location. In one city.In this the first book to arrive at my new house, I reflected back on what I saw and wondered how many hours of labor it would have taken to craft those garments at different stages in human history.Textile technology has evolved since humans first realized they could spin fibers from growing things into clothing. In this book, Virginia Postrel tells that story. Well worth your time.

Clearly laid out historical information and timeline. Very interesting. Highly recommend.

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.

I felt that this was a totally academic book which had a poor print and paper quality. The book contains just a few black-and-white photos and illustrations. There are no colour photos or plates to illustrate the title subject.Unfortunately a huge disappointment which was returned immediately

I read through really quickly. So much I did not know. I love fabric, adore looking at old samples at the V&A and recommend this book to anyone who loves fabric and or social history. First class.

I was really looking forward to reading this but am very disappointed. It’s not at all engaging to read. I felt it was written by someone who really doesn’t know how to bring a subject to life. It’s a very prescriptive monotone and I was bored rigid. I can’t even finish it. It’s going to the charity shop.

Good reference book for textile history.Disappointed there were not more plates alongside the information. The cover is the only colour in the book.

Just started reading very interesting but I am a knitter weaver so am keen to know the history of textiles