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Threads of Empire

By Dorothy Armstrong

Product Image: Threads of Empire

Threads of Empire

By Dorothy Armstrong

0 - Default Title
Description
A spellbinding look at the history of the world through the stories of twelve carpets Beautiful, sensuous, and enigmatic, great carpets follow power. Emperors, shahs, sultans and samurai crave them as symbols of earthly domination. Shamans and priests desire them to evoke the spiritual realm. The world's 1% hunger after them as displays of extreme status. And yet these seductive objects are made by poor and illiterate weavers, using the most basic materials and crafts; hedgerow plants for dyes, fibres from domestic animals, and the millennia-old skills of interweaving warps, wefts and knots. In Threads of Empire, Dorothy Armstrong tells the histories of some of the world's most fascinating carpets, exploring how these textiles came into being then were transformed as they moved across geography and time in the slipstream of the great. She shows why the world's powerful were drawn to them, but also asks what was happening in the weavers' lives, and how they were affected by events in the world outside their tent, village or workshop. In its wide-ranging examination of these dazzling objects, from the 5th century BCE contents of the tombs of Scythian chieftains, to the carpets under the boots of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill at the 1945 Yalta Peace Conference, Threads of Empire uncovers a new, hitherto hidden past right beneath our feet.
Product details
Binding:
Paperback
Edition:
1
Number of Pages:
368
Release Date:
2025-02-27
Publication Date:
2025-02-27
Publisher:
Orion
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
1399614231
ISBN13:
9781399614238
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
480 g
Height:
150 cm
Width:
231 cm
Thickness:
30 cm
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