Audiobook11 hours
The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History
Written by Kassia St. Clair
Narrated by Helen Johns
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
The bestselling author of The Secret Lives of Color returns with this rollicking narrative of the 30,000-year history of fabric, briskly told through thirteen charismatic episodes.
From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, The Golden Thread weaves an illuminating story of human ingenuity. Design journalist Kassia St. Clair guides us through the technological advancements and cultural customs that would redefine human civilization-from the fabric that allowed mankind to achieve extraordinary things (traverse the oceans and shatter athletic records) and survive in unlikely places (outer space and the South Pole). She peoples her story with a motley cast of characters, including Xiling, the ancient Chinese empress credited with inventing silk, to Richard the Lionhearted and Bing Crosby. Offering insights into the economic and social dimensions of clothmaking-and countering the enduring, often demeaning, association of textiles as "merely women's work"-The Golden Thread offers an alternative guide to our past, present, and future.
From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, The Golden Thread weaves an illuminating story of human ingenuity. Design journalist Kassia St. Clair guides us through the technological advancements and cultural customs that would redefine human civilization-from the fabric that allowed mankind to achieve extraordinary things (traverse the oceans and shatter athletic records) and survive in unlikely places (outer space and the South Pole). She peoples her story with a motley cast of characters, including Xiling, the ancient Chinese empress credited with inventing silk, to Richard the Lionhearted and Bing Crosby. Offering insights into the economic and social dimensions of clothmaking-and countering the enduring, often demeaning, association of textiles as "merely women's work"-The Golden Thread offers an alternative guide to our past, present, and future.
Related to The Golden Thread
Related audiobooks
Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Craeft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Empire of Cotton: A Global History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paper: Paging Through History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDress Design: An Account of Costume for Artists and Dressmakers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLondon Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMedieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ghost Map Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Culture: The Story of Us, From Cave Art to K-Pop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stoned: Jewelry, Obsession, and How Desire Shapes the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Edible History of Humanity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Natural History of Color: The Science Behind What We See and How We See it Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Miniature Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Social History For You
The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hip-Hop Is History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Barracoon: The Story of the Last ""Black Cargo"" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Truth Has a Power of Its Own: Conversations About A People's History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African American Voting Rights Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Requiem for the Massacre: A Black History on the Conflict, Hope and Fallout of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me for Young Readers: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roctogenarians: Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks, and Triumphs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Days in November Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines, and the Health of Nations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with our Wild Neighbors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silk: A World History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Golden Thread
Rating: 4.458333333333333 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
24 ratings0 reviews