Fabric of Civilization

Fascinating History. Postrel does a remarkable job of looking at the various people and technologies of making (primarily clothing) textiles throughout history and even into the future. She largely centers around the various types of entities involved in the work, from the source materials to the weavers to the sellers and a few other types, and shows how each contributed in some way to the overall history and to where we are now. Several tidbits I didn't know, including just how much cotton yarn is in an average pair of jeans, and a few that sound plausible, but which I'd need to research a bit more (such as claims about textiles being an early form of computing). At least one passage in particular actually brought to mind the James McAvoy / Angelina Jolie / Morgan Freeman movie Wanted, where looms and weaving play a central part in the mythos. Very much recommended.

This is such a superb read. How cotton was introduced in the world to different materials used in the textile industry and how the development and creating hybrids and different techniques used from history to geography and scientific aspects are covered about the humankind and how they evolved with this industry. I really loved the concept of math used for patterns explained and how the banking system was introduced, the innovations in textile, how a project that gave other results helped in the dying industry and how colonization and everything are interlinked.

This is a book on how human civilization and the clothing industry developed together and how the innovation made changes and improved the way of understanding and quality of the clothing.

The narration was so good. The author has researched a lot and made a great effort to make this book on fabrics and civilizations. Each chapter was on each thing related to the clothing industry from fabrics, dying, innovation, ...

I got a lot of information about the clothing industry and many more things.

Much like the book about colour and paint, that I recently read, I very much enjoyed this.

- textile changed the world and was a catalyst for trade and society. Spent a lot of time reflecting on the Systems and significance on a few long walks around the lake.