Download or read book Silk Through the Ages written by Trini Callava and published by Lid Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Silk is not just a simple fiber - it represents something meaningful, universal, perennial. This book tells the story of how the silk textile conquered the luxury world and remained prestigious throughout the ages. Examining sociological research dating back to Antiquity, the Mongol Empire, and Ottoman Turks, this book demonstrates the value of globalization and the importance of diversity through the lens of silk as an enduring luxury textile. This book will be highly marketable to international business students, and to consumers of sociology and history. It can also serve to inform the political science and international relations practitioners regarding trade debates between globalizers and protectionists.
Download or read book The Silk Roads written by Peter Frankopan and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-02-16 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Far more than a history of the Silk Roads, this book is truly a revelatory new history of the world, promising to destabilize notions of where we come from and where we are headed next. "A rare book that makes you question your assumptions about the world.” —The Wall Street Journal From the Middle East and its political instability to China and its economic rise, the vast region stretching eastward from the Balkans across the steppe and South Asia has been thrust into the global spotlight in recent years. Frankopan teaches us that to understand what is at stake for the cities and nations built on these intricate trade routes, we must first understand their astounding pasts. Frankopan realigns our understanding of the world, pointing us eastward. It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures and religions. From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the twentieth century—this book shows how the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East. Also available: The New Silk Roads, a timely exploration of the dramatic and profound changes our world is undergoing right now—as seen from the perspective of the rising powers of the East.
Download or read book The Silk Road in World History written by Xinru Liu and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient trade routes that made up the Silk Road were some of the great conduits of cultural and material exchange in world history. In this intriguing book, Xinru Liu reveals both why and how this long-distance trade in luxury goods emerged in the late third century BCE, following its story through to the Mongol conquest. Liu starts with China's desperate need for what the Chinese called "the heavenly horses" of Central Asia, and describes how the traders who brought these horses also brought other exotic products, some all the way from the Mediterranean. Likewise, the Roman Empire, as a result of its imperial ambition as well as the desire of its citizens for Chinese silk, responded with easterly explorations for trade. The book shows how the middle men, the Kushan Empire, spread Buddhism to China. Missionaries and pilgrims facilitated cave temples along the mountainous routes and monasteries in various oases and urban centers, forming the backbone of the Silk Road. The author also explains how Islamic and Mongol conquerors in turn controlled the various routes until the rise of sea travel diminished their importance.
Download or read book Silk written by Mary Schoeser and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geschiedenis van zijde wat betreft teelt en toepassing in kleding en andere producten, daarnaast komen verschillende modeontwerpers aan bod alsmede de toekomst van deze stof.
Download or read book Empires of the Silk Road written by Christopher I. Beckwith and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-16 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic account of the rise and fall of the Silk Road empires The first complete history of Central Eurasia from ancient times to the present day, Empires of the Silk Road represents a fundamental rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of this major world region. Christopher Beckwith describes the rise and fall of the great Central Eurasian empires, including those of the Scythians, Attila the Hun, the Turks and Tibetans, and Genghis Khan and the Mongols. In addition, he explains why the heartland of Central Eurasia led the world economically, scientifically, and artistically for many centuries despite invasions by Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Chinese, and others. In retelling the story of the Old World from the perspective of Central Eurasia, Beckwith provides a new understanding of the internal and external dynamics of the Central Eurasian states and shows how their people repeatedly revolutionized Eurasian civilization. Beckwith recounts the Indo-Europeans' migration out of Central Eurasia, their mixture with local peoples, and the resulting development of the Graeco-Roman, Persian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations; he details the basis for the thriving economy of premodern Central Eurasia, the economy's disintegration following the region's partition by the Chinese and Russians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the damaging of Central Eurasian culture by Modernism; and he discusses the significance for world history of the partial reemergence of Central Eurasian nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Empires of the Silk Road places Central Eurasia within a world historical framework and demonstrates why the region is central to understanding the history of civilization.
Download or read book Journeys on the Silk Road Through Ages Romance Legend Reality written by Avijeet Bhattacharya and published by Zorba Books. This book was released on 2017-10-11 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Journeys on the Silk Road Through Ages—Romance, Legend, Reality is a compelling narrative about the legendary Silk Road, down the ages. It takes us back to the nearly forgotten times when the dusty, long road was discovered by herders and nomads in search of pastures and oases. It was a long trek into the unknown. This gradually turned into the fabled ‘Silk Road’ spanning from China and across Central Asia, with its numerous trade routes, staging posts, caravanserais on the one hand, and the rugged landscape through steppes, across mountains, deserts and nations on the other. The Silk Road stood out like a great artery, that sustained for centuries. The Road with its routes conveyed not only commerce but also ideas and philosophy of the far-east China to the far-flung Roman Empire in the west, drawing from and contributing to other regions and countries that fell along the way – Turkestan, Afghanistan, India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Phoenicia and Anatolia, thus, linking the ancient and the medieval worlds. It was an enterprise of gigantic proportions; the great highway witnessed trade in almost all products, with silk, precious stones, porcelain, metals, and horses as chief commodities. Of these, silk was the foremost merchandise that merchants transported on camel caravans and upon mules from the Land of Serica. Slaves too were traded. Monks and warriors also walked along the trodden path. Merchants exchanged goods which made trade possible bringing in a flow of wealth, while monks and warriors exchanged philosophy, ideas, and statecraft, despite conflicts and wars. The narrative travels back to the times when the road started making history by joining imperial Xi’an with imperial Rome – a distance of more than 8,000kms – during the period of China’s Han Dynasty, sometime around 200 BC. This strangely endured till the present days of Communist China and OBOR, deliberating the Chinese Puzzle. The book is an adventurous amalgamation of history, travel and the unanticipated, and not merely a clichéd travel account. It presents a fascinating story of realms, rulers, travellers and merchants, both ancient and modern, with captivating collection of anecdotes, lores and current realities, from far and wide. Its brilliant web makes the book immensely readable.
Download or read book Transcending Patterns written by Mariachiara Gasparini and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2019-11-30 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Transcending Patterns: Silk Road Cultural and Artistic Interactions through Central Asian Textiles, Mariachiara Gasparini investigates the origin and effects of a textile-mediated visual culture that developed at the heart of the Silk Road between the seventh and fourteenth centuries. Through the analysis of the Turfan Textile Collection in the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin and more than a thousand textiles held in collections worldwide, Gasparini discloses and reconstructs the rich cultural entanglements along the Silk Road, between the coming of Islam and the rise of the Mongol Empire, from the Tarim to Mediterranean Basin. Exploring in detail the iconographic transfer between different agents and different media from Central Asian caves to South Italian churches, the author depicts and describes the movement and exchange of portable objects such as sculpture, wall painting, and silk fragments across the Asian continent and across the ages. Gasparini’s history offers critical perspectives that extend far beyond an outmoded notion of “Silk Road studies.” Her cross-media work shows readers how certain material cultures are connected not only by the physical routes they take but also because of the meanings and interpretations these objects engage in various places. Transcending Patterns is at once art history, material and visual cultural history, Asian studies, conservatory studies, and linguistics.
Download or read book The Silk Roads written by Xinru Liu and published by Macmillan Higher Education. This book was released on 2018-11-14 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than 1500 years, across more than 4000 miles, the Silk Roads connected East and West. These overland trails and sea lanes carried not only silks, but also cotton textiles, dyes, horses, incense, spices, gems, glass, and ceramics along with religious ideas, governing customs, and technology. For this book, Xinru Liu has assembled primary sources from ancient China, India, Central Asia, Rome and the Mediterranean, and the Islamic world, many of them difficult to access and some translated into English for the first time. Court histories, geographies and philosophical treatises, letters, travelers’ accounts, inventories, inscriptions, laws, religious texts, and more, introduce students to the complexities of cultural exchange. Liu’s thoughtful introduction considers the many ways the peoples along the Silk Roads interacted and helps students understand the implications for economies and societies, as well as political and religious institutions, over space and time. Maps, document headnotes and annotations, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support.
Download or read book The Ugly History of Beautiful Things written by Katy Kelleher and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-04-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In these dazzling and deeply researched essays, Katy Kelleher blends science, history, and memoir to uncover the dark underbellies of our favorite goods. She reveals the crushed beetle shells in our lipstick, the musk of rodents in our perfume, and the burnt cow bones baked into our dishware. She untangles the secret history of silk and muses on her problematic prom dress. She tells the story of countless workers dying in their efforts to bring us shiny rocks from unsafe mines that shatter and wound the earth, all because a diamond company created a compelling ad. She examines the enduring appeal of the beautiful dead girl and the sad fate of the ugly mollusk. With prose as stunning as the objects she describes, Kelleher invites readers to examine their own relationships with the beautiful objects that adorn their body and grace their homes"--
Download or read book Spider Silk written by Leslie Brunetta and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-08 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spiders, objects of eternal human fascination, are found in many places: on the ground, in the air, and even under water. Leslie Brunetta and Catherine Craig have teamed up to produce a substantive yet entertaining book for anyone who has ever wondered, as a spider rappelled out of reach on a line of silk, “How do they do that?” The orb web, that iconic wheel-shaped web most of us associate with spiders, contains at least four different silk proteins, each performing a different function and all meshing together to create a fly-catching machine that has amazed and inspired humans through the ages. Brunetta and Craig tell the intriguing story of how spiders evolved over 400 million years to add new silks and new uses for silk to their survival “toolkit” and, in the telling, take readers far beyond the orb. The authors describe the trials and triumphs of spiders as they use silk to negotiate an ever-changing environment, and they show how natural selection acts at the genetic level and as individuals struggle for survival.
Download or read book The Silk Road written by Valerie Hansen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Silk Road is as iconic in world history as the Colossus of Rhodes or the Suez Canal. But what was it, exactly? It conjures up a hazy image of a caravan of camels laden with silk on a dusty desert track, reaching from China to Rome. The reality was different--and far more interesting--as revealed in this new history. In The Silk Road, Valerie Hansen describes the remarkable archeological finds that revolutionize our understanding of these trade routes. For centuries, key records remained hidden--sometimes deliberately buried by bureaucrats for safe keeping. But the sands of the Taklamakan Desert have revealed fascinating material, sometimes preserved by illiterate locals who recycled official documents to make insoles for shoes or garments for the dead. Hansen explores seven oases along the road, from Xi'an to Samarkand, where merchants, envoys, pilgrims, and travelers mixed in cosmopolitan communities, tolerant of religions from Buddhism to Zoroastrianism. There was no single, continuous road, but a chain of markets that traded between east and west. China and the Roman Empire had very little direct trade. China's main partners were the peoples of modern-day Iran, whose tombs in China reveal much about their Zoroastrian beliefs. Silk was not the most important good on the road; paper, invented in China before Julius Caesar was born, had a bigger impact in Europe, while metals, spices, and glass were just as important as silk. Perhaps most significant of all was the road's transmission of ideas, technologies, and artistic motifs. The Silk Road is a fascinating story of archeological discovery, cultural transmission, and the intricate chains across Central Asia and China.
Download or read book Fabric written by Victoria Finlay and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A magnificent work of original research that unravels history through textiles and cloth—how we make it, use it, and what it means to us. How is a handmade fabric helping save an ancient forest? Why is a famous fabric pattern from India best known by the name of a Scottish town? How is a Chinese dragon robe a diagram of the whole universe? What is the difference between how the Greek Fates and the Viking Norns used threads to tell our destiny? In Fabric, bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe, weaving stories of our relationship with cloth and asking how and why people through the ages have made it, worn it, invented it, and made symbols out of it. And sometimes why they have fought for it. She beats the inner bark of trees into cloth in Papua New Guinea, fails to handspin cotton in Guatemala, visits tweed weavers at their homes in Harris, and has lessons in patchwork-making in Gee's Bend, Alabama - where in the 1930s, deprived of almost everything they owned, a community of women turned quilting into an art form. She began her research just after the deaths of both her parents —and entwined in the threads she found her personal story too. Fabric is not just a material history of our world, but Finlay's own journey through grief and recovery.
Download or read book Chinese Silks written by Juanjuan Chen and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive history of China's most luxurious textile and its enduring influence on Chinese civilization and art Over the past fifty years, archaeological explorations in China have unearthed a wealth of textile materials, some dating as far back as five thousand years. In this magnificently researched and illustrated book, preeminent Western and Chinese scholars draw upon these spectacular discoveries to provide the most thorough account of the history of silk ever written. Encyclopedic in breadth, the volume presents a chronological history of silk from a variety of perspectives, including archaeological, technological, art historical, and aesthetic. The contributors explore the range of uses for silk, from the everyday to the sublime. By directly connecting recently found textile artifacts to specific references in China's vast historical literature, they illuminate the evolution of silk making and the driving social forces that have inspired the creation of innovative textiles through the millennia. Published in association with the Foreign Languages Press, Beijing
Download or read book Chinese Silk written by S. J. Vainker and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: .
Download or read book Through The Ages History Civics class 6 written by TAPATI DAS GUPTA and published by S. Chand Publishing. This book was released on with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through The Ages for classes 6 to 8 follows the latest syllabus guidelines of Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations. With an attractive layout and interesting features and activities, the books have been designed to make studying history and civics enjoyable for the students.
Download or read book Byzantine Silk on the Silk Roads written by Sarah E. Braddock Clarke and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-08-11 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With over 200 color illustrations, Byzantine Silk on the Silk Roads examines in detail the eclectic iconography of the Byzantine period and its impact on design and creativity today. Through an examination of the extraordinary variety of designs in these captivating silks, an international team of experts reveal that Byzantine culture was ever-moving and open to diverse influences across the length of the Silk Road. Commentaries from curators at key collections – including the Museum of Arts, Boston, the Smithsonian (Cooper Hewitt), the V&A and the Vatican – reveal the spread of silk embroidery and designs from East to West, and from West to East, from China to Rome, and from Constantinople to Korea. Drawing on exclusive imagery from worldwide collections within museums, churches and archives as case studies, their analysis of these unique woven silks explores the relationship between color and power, material culture and status, and offers broader insight into Byzantine culture, trade, society and ceremony. Byzantine Silk ... takes us on a journey from the past to the present, too, where Byzantine story-telling and image-making is revisited, through color, imagery and pattern, in contemporary fashion collections. Exploring Byzantine culture through a contemporary filter, the book shows how the Byzantine era still influences textile and fashion designers today in their choices of materials and colors, and their utilization of images and patterns, acting as a unique source of inspiration to designers and creators in the 21st century.
Download or read book Journeys on the Silk Road written by Joyce Morgan and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-08-22 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a Chinese monk broke into a hidden cave in 1900, he uncovered one of the world’s great literary secrets: a time capsule from the ancient Silk Road. Inside, scrolls were piled from floor to ceiling, undisturbed for a thousand years. The gem within was the Diamond Sutra of AD 868. This key Buddhist teaching, made 500 years before Gutenberg inked his press, is the world’s oldest printed book. The Silk Road once linked China with the Mediterranean. It conveyed merchants, pilgrims and ideas. But its cultures and oases were swallowed by shifting sands. Central to the Silk Road’s rediscovery was a man named Aurel Stein, a Hungarian-born scholar and archaeologist employed by the British service. Undaunted by the vast Gobi Desert, Stein crossed thousands of desolate miles with his fox terrier Dash. Stein met the Chinese monk and secured the Diamond Sutra and much more. The scroll’s journey—by camel through arid desert, by boat to London’s curious scholars, by train to evade the bombs of World War II—merges an explorer’s adventures, political intrigue, and continued controversy. The Diamond Sutra has inspired Jack Kerouac and the Dalai Lama. Its journey has coincided with the growing appeal of Buddhism in the West. As the Gutenberg Age cedes to the Google Age, the survival of the Silk Road’s greatest treasure is testament to the endurance of the written word.
