Synopsis:
Essential in the everyday lives of all societies for providing protection and warmth, textiles also fulfill social, cultural, military, legal, and symbolic functions and have played a key role in the economic activity of societies from ancient times. This magnificent two-volume study brings together the leading experts on textiles from eight countries, ensuring authoritative coverage of the production and uses of textiles in western societies from the earliest times to the present day. With contributions from archaeologists, economic and social historians, historians of fashion and the history of dress, and museum curators, no other book offers the breadth of coverage of this one, in terms of time period, subject matter, or approach. The book's range and accessibility will ensure that it is a key reference for specialists and non-specialists alike. David Jenkins is Senior Lecturer in Economic History in the Department of Economics and Related Studies at the University of York. He is also Governor and Company Secretary of the Pasold Research Fund, which promotes research and publication in the history of textiles in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Jenkins has a special interest in the wool textile industry, where his major contribution is (with the late K.G. Ponting) The British Wool Textile Industry, 1880-1914 (Ashgate Publishing Company, 1982). For several years Jenkins was a member of Council and Honorary Secretary of the Economic History Society and is a member of the Editorial Board of Textile History.
Book Description:
Textiles have been essential to the everyday lives of all societies. Besides helping provide protection and warmth, they have fulfilled social, cultural, military, legal and symbolic functions, and have been an essential part of the economic activity of societies from ancient times. The Cambridge History of Western Textiles brings together and extends current knowledge on the production and uses of textiles, through the eyes of archaeologists, economic and social historians, historians of fashion and the history of dress, and museum curators familiar with surviving artefacts.
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