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Digital Audiobook
The Golden Thread by Kassia St. Clair

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The Golden Thread

Narrator
Helen Johns
Publisher
Highbridge Company
Publish Date
26 November 2019
Run Time
11 hours 26 minutes
Format
Audiobook
$13.95

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What to expect

The bestselling 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 redefine 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.

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Details

Author
Kassia St. Clair
Narrator
Helen Johns
Duration
11 hours 26 minutes
Release Date
26 November 2019
ISBN
9781684575084
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
Highbridge Company
Genre
Design, Industrial and commercial arts, illustration, Fashion and textile design, Fashion and textile design: accessories, Textile artworks, Social and cultural history, History of design, History

Synopsis

The bestselling 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 redefine 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.

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