Download or read book The Golden Thread How Fabric Changed History written by Kassia St. Clair and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Sunday Times (UK) Book of the Year Shortlisted • Society of Authors' Somerset Maugham Award A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week The best-selling 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 redefi ne 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.
Download or read book Threads of Life written by Clare Hunter and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This globe-spanning history of sewing and embroidery, culture and protest, is “an astonishing feat . . . richly textured and moving” (The Sunday Times, UK). In 1970s Argentina, mothers marched in headscarves embroidered with the names of their “disappeared” children. In Tudor, England, when Mary, Queen of Scots, was under house arrest, her needlework carried her messages to the outside world. From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry, World War I soldiers coping with PTSD, and the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World, to the AIDS quilt, Hmong story clothes, and pink pussyhats, women and men have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances. Threads of Life is a chronicle of identity, memory, power, and politics told through the stories of needlework. Clare Hunter, master of the craft, threads her own narrative as she takes us over centuries and across continents—from medieval France to contemporary Mexico and the United States, and from a POW camp in Singapore to a family attic in Scotland—to celebrate the universal beauty and power of sewing.
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 The Secret Lives of Colour written by Kassia St Clair and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A mind-expanding tour of the world without leaving your paintbox. Every colour has a story, and here are some of the most alluring, alarming, and thought-provoking. Very hard painting the hallway magnolia after this inspiring primer.' Simon Garfield The Secret Lives of Colour tells the unusual stories of the 75 most fascinating shades, dyes and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acidyellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book Kassia St Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colours and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilisation. Across fashion and politics, art and war, TheSecret Lives of Colour tell the vivid story of our culture.
Download or read book Everyday Life in Global Morocco written by Rachel Newcomb and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-09 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the story of one middle class family as they work, eat, love, and grow, Everyday Life in Global Morocco provides a moving and engaging exploration of how world issues impact lives. Rachel Newcomb shows how larger issues like gentrification, changing diets, and nontraditional approaches to marriage and fertility are changing what the everyday looks and feels like in Morocco. Newcomb's close engagement with the Benjelloun family presents a broad range of responses to the multifaceted effects of globalization. The lived experience of the modern family is placed in contrast with the traditional expectation of how this family should operate. This juxtaposition encourages new ways of thinking about how modern the notion of globalization really is.
Download or read book A Common Thread written by Sean Fitzgerald and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2020-11-28 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Common Thread offers a collection of science-inspired contemporary tales that reside at the edge of speculation.
Download or read book A Better Life written by Rebecca Smith and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2020-05-19 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The founder of Better Life Bags, Rebecca Smith, teaches us how to take little steps, say yes when God calls, and follow the passion He has given us. Let love stretch you. As the founder of one of the most popular custom handbag companies in the country, Rebecca Smith knows a thing or two about business. A highly successful entrepreneur in a world where the focus is on scalability, brand strategy, and global marketing, Rebecca Smith also knows the truth: that every success she's experienced at Better Life Bags has been the result of very small, very ordinary, very obedient steps of faith. Moving from Savannah, Georgia, to Hamtramck, Michigan, was culture shock enough for Rebecca. But trying to feel at home in a city where twenty-six different languages were spoken and most of the inhabitants were immigrants seemed downright impossible. It was only when Rebecca recognized that God had called her to this specific neighborhood at this particular moment in time that his plans began to unfold for her. Stepping forward into the place God had called her - a place that seemed messy and uncomfortable and unfamiliar - Rebecca discovered the true secret to success: when we slow down, pay attention, and trust that still, small voice of God to guide us, we just might change the world. Though Rebecca never set out to build a brand or create an empire, God saw Rebecca's heart for others, and began to multiply her efforts in ways she could have never imagined, creating a company where women from different cultures, faiths, and backgrounds work together for the good of others - for a better life. As you read this inspiring story, you will discover how to hear and follow God's voice for yourself as you slow down, take one small step at a time, and make a difference in the world right where you are.
Download or read book The Fabric of Civilization written by Virginia Postrel and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Paleolithic flax to 3D knitting, explore the global history of textiles and the world they weave together in this enthralling and educational guide. The story of humanity is the story of textiles -- as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo's David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code. Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world's most influential commodity.
Download or read book Women s Work The First 20 000 Years Women Cloth and Society in Early Times written by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1995-09-17 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A fascinating history of…[a craft] that preceded and made possible civilization itself." —New York Times Book Review New discoveries about the textile arts reveal women's unexpectedly influential role in ancient societies. Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women. Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no information on them. Much of this gap results from the extreme perishability of what women produced, but it seems clear that until now descriptions of prehistoric and early historic cultures have omitted virtually half the picture. Elizabeth Wayland Barber has drawn from data gathered by the most sophisticated new archaeological methods—methods she herself helped to fashion. In a "brilliantly original book" (Katha Pollitt, Washington Post Book World), she argues that women were a powerful economic force in the ancient world, with their own industry: fabric.
Download or read book The Pocket written by Barbara Burman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-24 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Best Art Book of 2019 “A riveting book . . . few stones are left unturned.”—Roberta Smith’s “Top Art Books of 2019,” The New York Times This fascinating and enlightening study of the tie-on pocket combines materiality and gender to provide new insight into the social history of women’s everyday lives—from duchesses and country gentry to prostitutes and washerwomen—and to explore their consumption practices, sociability, mobility, privacy, and identity. A wealth of evidence reveals unexpected facets of the past, bringing women’s stories into intimate focus. “What particularly interests Burman and Fennetaux is the way in which women of all classes have historically used these tie-on pockets as a supplementary body part to help them negotiate their way through a world that was not built to suit them.”—Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian “A brilliant book.”—Ulinka Rublack, Times Literary Supplement
Download or read book The Golden Thread written by Darlene Zschech and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you feel like you are barely holding on? Let the golden thread of God's presence be the calm on the other side of chaos. It could be that He is weaving a brilliant new beginning in the middle of your mess. “I know your faith will be lifted and increased with this new treasure.” —Chris Tomlin Join beloved worship leader and songwriter of “Shout to The Lord”, Darlene Zschech as she traces God’s goodness through her recent transitions. Perfect for anyone who’s: Battling cancer or another health scare Moving to a new city Starting a church or a new job Struggling through a season of doubt or change Darlene urges us to maintain joy in the middle of it all. Rather than seeing her many life changes as a zigzag of unrelated events, Darlene and her family have learned to trace God’s goodness through every crisis—even as she faced the battle for her life, cancer. Your heart will be encouraged, and your faith will soar right along with Darlene’s.
Download or read book Why We Make Things and Why it Matters written by Peter Korn and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-02-05 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do we make things? Why do we choose the emotionally and physically demanding work of bringing new objects into the world with creativity and skill? Why does it matter that we make things well? What is the nature of work? And what is the nature of a good life? This January, whether you're honing your craft or turning your hand to a new skill, discover the true value in what it means to be a craftsman in a mass-produced world. Part memoir, part polemic, part philosophical reflection, this is a book about the process of creation. For woodworker Peter Korn, the challenging work of bringing something new and meaningful into the world through one's own efforts is exactly what generates authenticity, meaning, and fulfilment, for which many of us yearn. This is not a 'how-to' book in any sense, Korn wants to get at the 'why' of craft in particular, and the satisfaction of creative work in general, to understand its essential nature. How does the making of objects shape our identities? How do the products of creative work inform society? In short, what does the process of making things reveal to us about ourselves? Korn draws on four decades of hands-on experience to answer these questions eloquently in this heartfelt, personal and revealing book. 'If you are in the building trade or just love creating things as a hobby, you will find this book fascinating' The Sun
Download or read book The Sheep People written by Kristin Armstrong Oma and published by Equinox Publishing (UK). This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The overarching aim of The Sheep People is to examine what happens to the understanding of past societies when animals are perceived as sentient beings, agents with the ability to impact human lives. Not only are the agentive powers and potential of animals recognised, but also how this shaped prehistoric societies. Throughout, animals are considered as themselves, not as props, tools or consumables for human societies. A thorough review of recent research that supports the agential potential of animals from Human-Animal Studies and the social sciences, as well as ethology, biology and neurology is given, and discussed in light of the archaeological case study. In the Early Bronze Age in northern Europe, a transition from building two-aisled to three-aisled longhouses as the primary farm dwelling took place. In Rogaland, southwestern Norway, this architectural change happened as the result of intensified human-sheep relationships, born from greater engagement and proximity needed to utilise wool. Evidence from landscape changes, settlements, mortuary practices and rock art give an in-depth understanding of the life-world of Bronze Age human and non-human agents and the nature of the choices they made. A rock art panel portraying sheep, man and dog demonstrates the entangled choreography of sheep herding.
Download or read book Turkey Red written by Julie Wertz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-01-25 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This multi-disciplinary study examines the exceptional Turkey red textile dyeing process and product. Prized for its brilliant colour and durability, yet notoriously difficult to produce, the textile was consumed locally and exported around the world. Considered one of the first instances of industrial espionage, the expansion of the Turkey red industry is closely linked to the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of a new global economy. Significant technological advances in chemistry and dyeing were motivated by the demands of Turkey red dyers and printers, who were located primarily in the west of Scotland, the north of England, and around Mulhouse, Switzerland. This book explores the arc of the Turkey red industry, the evolution of the process through key producers and technical developments, the complicated printing process, and finishes with an examination of significant Turkey red collections and a selection of object case studies. The chemistry of the process is described in an accessible, contextual manner, highlighting the significance of the distinctive technique that yielded the best red attainable on cotton. Drawing on both historical and contemporary study, Turkey Red presents significant new research on the material characterisation of this fascinating, eye-catching textile, and offers an in-depth historical example of the global effect of textile consumption.
Download or read book Deep History Climate Change and the Evolution of Human Culture written by Louise Westling and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-08 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Element follows the development of humans in constantly changing climates and environments from Homo erectus 1.9 million years ago, to fully modern humans who moved out of Africa to Europe and Asia 70,000 years ago. Biosemiotics reveals meaningful communication among coevolving members of the intricately connected life forms on this dynamic planet. Within this web hominins developed culture from bipedalism and meat-eating to the use of fire, stone tools, and clothing, allowing wide migrations and adaptations. Archaeology and ancient DNA analysis show how fully modern humans overlapped with Neanderthals and Denisovans before emerging as the sole survivors of the genus Homo 35,000 years ago. Their visions of the world appear in magnificent cave paintings and bone sculptures of animals, then more recently in written narratives like the Gilgamesh epic and Euripides' Bacchae whose images still haunt us with anxieties about human efforts to control the natural world.
Download or read book Imagining Imaging written by Michael R. Jackson and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2021-11-25 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Roentgen to Rembrandt, Hounsfield to Hollywood and Vesalius to videogames, Imagining Imaging explores the deeply entwined relationship between art (and visual-based culture) and radiology / medical imaging. Including artworks from numerous historical eras representing varied geographic locations and visual traditions, alongside a diverse range of contemporary artists, Dr Jackson argues that the foundations of medical image construction and interpretation were laid down in artistic innovations dating back hundreds and thousands of years. Since the discovery of X-rays, artists and moviemakers have, in turn, drawn rich inspiration from radiographic imagery and concepts, but the process of cross-pollination between art and science has continued, with creative endeavour continuing to mould medical imaging examinations to this day. Blending a unique mix of art, science and medical history, together with aspects of visual neurophysiology and psychology, Imagining Imaging is essential reading for radiologists, radiographers and artists alike. Peppered with familiar TV and film references, personal insights into the business of image interpretation, and delivered in an accessible and humorous style, the book will also appeal to anyone who enjoys looking at pictures. Key features: Engaging synthesis of art and medical history, combined with anecdotes and experiences from a working clinical radiologist Diverse range of visual reference points including astronomy, botany and cartography, alongside comprehensive discussion of medical imaging modalities including plain radiography, ultrasound, CT and MRI 200 full colour illustrations
Download or read book The Hidden Life of Clothing written by Rachel Worth and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the democratisation of the clothing industry in the early 19th century, buyers have become increasingly disconnected from the creative and human aspects of the production of clothing. Arguably clothing is now valued less for its aesthetic qualities or because of the hours spent in its making, but more for the extent to which it serves current 'fashion'. In a climate of increasing anxiety about the environmental and social impact of the contemporary global fashion industry, Rachel Worth suggests that, rather than seeking solutions only in the present, looking to history can assist in understanding better the challenges consumers face today in making decisions about the contents of their wardrobes, which, in turn, will impact on the nature of the future global fashion industry. She does not seek to offer simplistic historical solutions to contemporary problems, but explores ways in which it might be possible to bridge divides between knowledge of the past, current individual choice, and possible directions for future action. The more we know about our clothes, the less likely it is that we will wear an item of clothing only a few times before replenishing it with newer purchases that are 'on trend'. By taking ownership of our personal clothing choices rather than feeling pressurised to respond to sophisticated marketing and to 'influencers', this book suggests how we might rethink our wardrobes in philosophical and practical ways in order to create a sense of order and beauty in our lives and to wrest control back from the increasing chaos of seemingly endless choice that perpetuates unsustainable, impersonal and fast fashion.
