The Thread of History: How the Spinning Wheel, Spindle, and Loom Helped Build Civilization

«The Thread of History» — a story full of amazing details about the most influential commodity in the history of humanity.
The history of humanity is the history of textiles, a contemporary of civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun,... our insatiable need for fabrics has driven forward technology, economy, politics, and culture.
Virginia Postrel reveals this astonishing narrative to us, bringing together data from the latest research in archaeology, economic history, and natural sciences. From the Minoans, who exported wool dyed with precious purple to Egypt, to the Romans dressed in expensive Chinese silk, the trade in textiles paved the transcontinental highways of the Ancient World.
Without income from textiles, neither the Renaissance nor the Great Mughal Empire would have been possible; only thanks to it did we gain banks and accounting, Michelangelo's «David», and the Taj Mahal. Along with fabrics, the alphabet and arithmetic spread around the world, and later the textile industry stimulated major chemical discoveries and taught people to use binary code.