Fabric of civilization. How textiles created the world

The history of mankind is the history of textiles, because it was, without exaggeration, that created our world. The need for fabrics has become a driver of technology, entrepreneurship, politics and culture. The textile business spread the alphabet, arithmetic, and double-entry bookkeeping, stimulated chemical research, taught people to think in a binary code paradigm, gave rise to financial institutions, facilitated the slave trade, financed the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire...Virginia Postrel synthesizes ground-breaking research in archaeology, economics, and more science to unravel this amazing history: from Assyrian cloth merchants, ancient Chinese silk weavers, Minoans who exported wool dyed with precious purple dye to Egypt, and Romans who wore expensive Chinese silk, to modern fabric manufacturers and scientists who create the latest fibers from unusual properties.