The History of Fabric Is the History of Civilization

Virginia Postrel's new book explores economics, politics, and technology through textiles.

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The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, a new book by former Reason editor in chief Virginia Postrel, is a rich, endlessly fascinating history of the remarkable luck, invention, and innovation that made our fabric-rich world possible.

The book aims to make the mundane miraculous. Consider cotton. Most of the cotton we grow today is descended in part from a plant species that evolved in Africa and somehow got over to what is now Peru, where it mixed with New World strains.

"The fact that we have cotton at all, that it exists anywhere, is amazing," says Postrel. "It happened long before there were human beings, but much more recently than when the continents were together. So we don't know. It could have gotten caught up in a hurricane. It could have floated on a piece of pumice. So it's this random, very unlikely happening that had tremendous world-changing consequences."

The story of textiles is rife with attempts at protectionism and prohibition. In 17th and 18th century Europe, countries banned the importation of super-soft, super-colorful cotton prints from India known as calicos because they threatened domestic producers of everything from lower-quality cotton fabric to luxury silks. "For 73 years, France treated calico the way the U.S. treats cocaine," Postrel says. "There was this huge amount of smuggling, and they were constantly ratcheting up the penalties [so] that they got quite grotesque, at least for the major traffic." Some of "the earliest writings of classical liberalism are in this context, people saying not only is this not working, but…it is unjust to be sentencing people to the galleys in order to protect silk makers' profits."

Postrel also documents how the Luddites, the 19th century English textile workers famous for smashing the power looms threatening to put them out of work, owed their jobs to an earlier technological breakthrough: the spinning machines that emerged in the late 1700s.

"If you go back to that earlier period, when spinning machines were introduced, the same thing happened," she says. "They had their own period of rebelling against the new technologies and saying they're putting people out at work."

The book also upends some contemporary myths, such as the claim that commercial production of hemp for clothing was a casualty of the war on drugs. "Hemp historically was a very coarse kind of fabric for poor people who didn't have an alternative," says Postrel. "It was replaced by cotton for good reasons. Cotton was also affordable, but it was soft and washable and just a much better fabric."

"Human beings live in history and we inherit the legacies, positive and negative, of that history," says Postrel, whose previous books include The Power of Glamour, The Substance of Style, and The Future and Its Enemies. Discussing the large themes of her work she says, "All you can do is start from where you are and try to do better from where you are."

Listen to the full podcast interview here.

Narrated by Nick Gillespie. Edited by Isaac Reese.

Music: "Thoughts," by ANBR

Photos: World History Archive/Newscom; The Print Collector Heritage Images/Newsroom; The "Réale" returning to port, Med/CC BY-SA 3.0; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture/CC0; Battle of Grand Port, Rama/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0 FR; Fine Art Images Heritage Images/Newscom; Seton, M., Müller, R., Zahirovic, S., Gaina, C., Torsvik, T., Shephard, G., Talsma, A., Gurnis, M., Turner, M., Maus, S., and Chandler, M., 2012, Global continental and ocean basin reconstructions since 200 Ma: Earth-Science Reviews, v. 113, no. 3-4, p. 212-270

[danielcobbins]

We often think of the Industrial Revolution as being first associated with textiles. True, but let's look at what happened before mass production. It was a slow process making clothing, and due to their scarcity, they had to last a generation or more, which meant frequent washing would wear them out quickly. Mass production meant a revolution in hygiene, because worn out clothes could be easily replaced by new ones.

[Bpaynee]

Great book! I got it for my stepmom, and she liked it so much she got me my own copy. We've been trying to convince my dad to read it too. He loves history, but we can't convince him he'd be interested in the history of clothing. The silly thing is, reading this book is exactly what explains how big a piece of the picture is missing for him without taking it into account. I wish everyone would read this

[thejohnbeck]

another book to add to my list. Too many good books out there.

[gemmeldrakes]

I read this book. It was so fascinating to learn the part played by fabric production in human history.

[LindseyHolmes-dr]

Must buy!! I feel that the Globalised Textiles market has 'spun' around my life ! My dad worked in the Cotton Exchange in Liverpool for years. The importation and exportation of Cotton wasn't thought of as an ethical issue until Mr Gandhi visited the mills. Later on, I worked as Art and textiles teacher at a school in Nottingham. The benefactor was a textiles magnet, who sold the businesses to India and China. Thus demoralising the designers, graduates, factory workers, tailors etc. Fast forward twenty years, I was invited to run a textiles project with a fashion class and Chinese fashion group- which bought the original looms from the haute couture fashion houses in Europe...

[georger]

Oh, this spunds interesting! My mother worked in a textile mill in the early 1960s. I remember days when we picked her up from work, those huge halls with endless rows of looms, and yarns running everywhere, the noise, and cloth rolled, and folded.
In many hostory books I read about the Nglish wool trade, and how it made Flanders great (at the risk of making it an economic one-tick-pony). And the calicos, sumptuary laws, and many other things. Yes, fabric is a fascinating topic, will definitely get the book!

[ledelste]

Textiles are really interesting and Postrel is a great mind and communicator, so I’m excited for this book!

[pliskenmovie]

I always loved the James Burke "Connections" episode where he talks about how the Jacquard loom and it's "automation" cards led to a revolution in affordable clothing and just happened to be the forefather of computers.

[carawadley]

A Libertarian giving a critique on Libertarianism, in the main Libertarian magazine- how refreshing!

[thegnosticatheist]

4:38 wise words. Default state of affairs is not what is a default state for rational argument when discussing things in abstract, but whatever we have right here, right now. But at the same time how things are or were should never dictate how things should be in the future. History should teach us how to achieve desired future, not what future we should want to achieve.

[jeffersonianideal]

"The touch; the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives."

[soapbxprod]

The Jacquard Loom was the ancestor of the computer.

[vvee]

So sad to see so little information about India and textiles, considering how much of it was driven by it. Indian textiles were far superior to anything that the west produced, hence the protectionist measures. But I find any discussion of India's central role in the textile industry as basically non-existant in this video.

[josephanglim]

Really enjoyed the book. I listened to the audiobook edition. I will be certainly be reading more on this topic especially in my home town of Philadelphia,

What could have been a very boring topic was avoided by the authors interesting insights.

[aliciaseecharan]

I heart calico. I thought it was wallpaper fabrics and cats 🤣🤣🤣💕

[MirzaAhmed]

Sounds like a great book. Ordered on Amazon.

[Unique_username-krcu]

Please consider ensuring closed captions on all of your videos so everyone can enjoy them

[JavierBonillaC]

If this was a 4 hour documentary, I'd happily pay the price of the book for it. A book is not the best format for this kind of explanation.

[temaroncansler]

as a libertarian myself i don't expect the world to be like a blank sheet of paper. I just believe that treating it like such will have the least drastic reprecusion.

[harrishartman]

Crude Palm Oil in Indonesia and Malaysia: Hello my old friend.