The Fabric of Civilization

The Fabric of Civilization
Author: Virginia Postrel
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2020-11-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1541617614

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.

Ancient Textiles

Ancient Textiles
Author: Marie-Louise Nosch
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 789
Release: 2007-03-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1782974393

An understanding of textiles and the role they played in the past is important for anyone interested in past societies. Textiles served and in fact still do as both functional and symbolic items. The evidence for ancient textiles in Europe is split quite definitely along a north-south divide, with an abundance of actual examples in the north, but precious little in the south, where indirect evidence comes from such things as vase painting and frescoes. This volume brings together these two schools to look in more detail at textiles in the ancient world, and is based on a conference held in Denmark and Sweden in March 2003. Section one, Production and Organisation takes a chronological look through more than four thousand years of history; from Syria in the mid-third millennium BC, to Seventeenth Century Germany. Section two, Crafts and Technology focuses on the relationship between the primary producer (the craftsman) and the secondary receiver (the archaeologist/conservator). The third section, Society, examines the symbolic nature of textiles, and their place within ancient societal groups. Throughout the book emphasis is placed on the universality of textiles, and the importance of information exchange between scholars from different disciplines. A small book on finds First Aid for the Excavation of Archaeological Textiles is included as an Appendix.

Fabric of Society

Fabric of Society
Author: Jane Tozer
Publisher: Carno, Powys, Wales : L. Ashley
Total Pages: 176
Release: 1983
Genre: Design
ISBN:

Essays inspired by the collections at Platt Hall, The Gallery of English Costume, Manchester.

Textile Economies

Textile Economies
Author: Walter E. Little
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2011-10-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0759120633

Textiles have been a highly valued and central part of the politics of human societies across culture divides and over millennia. The economy of textiles provides insight into the fabric of social relations, local and global politics, and diverse ideologies. Textiles are a material element of society that fosters the study of continuities and disjunctions in the economic and social realities of past and present societies. From stick-loom weaving to transnational factories, the production of cloth and its transformation into clothing and other woven goods offers a way to study the linkages between economics and politics. The volume is oriented around a number of themes: textile production, textiles as trade goods, textiles as symbols, textiles in tourism, and textiles in the transnational processes. Textile Economies appeals to a broad range of scholars interested in the intersection of material culture, political economy, and globalization, such as archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, economists, museum curators, and historians.

The Information Society: Emerging Landscapes

The Information Society: Emerging Landscapes
Author: Chris Zielinski
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2006-01-26
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0387305270

This book is compiled of selected proceedings from the "Landscapes" Conference held at Turku University, Finland, in July 2005. The themes chosen for the conference – philosophy, ethics and sociological aspects, culture and education; social aspects; politics and regulation; economics and work; technology and emerging technologies – represent many of the perspectives from which to view this landscape. The papers illustrate the diverse impacts of the information society and the changing paradigms within education, law, health care, the workplace and on future societal infrastructures through research initiatives and the development of new technologies. In this book, IFIP WG9.2 has attempted to capture the new ‘emerging landscape’ of the Information Society. A picture of profound technological and social change emerges from this holistic approach. It offers a key to understanding the ramifications of computer technologies within the information society, and of the social accountability of all those who work with and are affected by them.

The Information Society

The Information Society
Author: David Lyon
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2013-04-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745667597

This book provides an overview of debates about whether we are entering into a phase of social existence without precedent - the 'information society'. Intended as a bridge between the literatures of 'social theory' and the 'social impact of technology', this study exposes the myths surrounding the creation of the information society, discussing technologies such as cable TV and robotics.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
Author: Elizabeth Wayland Barber
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 344
Release: 1995-09-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0393285588

"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.

Knowledge Workers in the Information Society

Knowledge Workers in the Information Society
Author: Catherine McKercher
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2008
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780739117811

Knowledge Workers in the Information Society addresses the changing nature of work, workers, and their organizations in the media, information, and knowledge industries. These knowledge workers include journalists, broadcasters, librarians, filmmakers and animators, government workers, and employees in the telecommunications and high tech sectors. Technological change has become relentless. Corporate concentration has created new pressures to rationalize work and eliminate stages in the labor process. Globalization and advances in telecommunications have made real the prospect that knowledge work will follow manufacturing labor to parts of the world with low wages, poor working conditions, and little unionization. McKercher and Mosco bring together scholars from numerous disciplines to examine knowledge workers from a genuinely global perspective.

Computer Technology for Textiles and Apparel

Computer Technology for Textiles and Apparel
Author: Jinlian Hu
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2011-07-14
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0857093606

Computer technology has transformed textiles from their design through to their manufacture and has contributed to significant advances in the textile industry. Computer technology for textiles and apparel provides an overview of these innovative developments for a wide range of applications, covering topics including structure and defect analysis, modelling and simulation, and apparel design.The book is divided into three parts. Part one provides a review of different computer-based technologies suitable for textile materials, and includes chapters on computer technology for yarn and fabric structure analysis, defect analysis and measurement. Chapters in part two discuss modelling and simulation principles of fibres, yarns, textiles and garments, while part three concludes with a review of computer-based technologies specific to apparel and apparel design, with themes ranging from 3D body scanning to the teaching of computer-aided design to fashion students.With its distinguished editor and international team of expert contributors, Computer technology for textiles and apparel is an invaluable tool for a wide range of people involved in the textile industry, from designers and manufacturers to fibre scientists and quality inspectors. - Provides an overview of innovative developments in computer technology for a wide range of applications - Covers structure and defect analysis, modelling and simulation and apparel design - Themes range from 3D body scanning to the teaching of computer-aided design to fashion students