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Threads of empire : a history of the world in twelve carpets
Armstrong, Dorothy (Writer on carpets)2025
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Click and Collect for Threads of empire : a history of the world in twelve carpetsA 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.
Main title:
Threads of empire : a history of the world in twelve carpets / Dorothy Armstrong.
Author:
Imprint:
London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2025.©2025
Collation:
xi, 353 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : colour illustrations, map ; 24 cm
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:
978139961423897813996142389781399614221
Dewey class:
746.79
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
581711
More Information:
| Location | Collection | Call number | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brighton Library | Adult Non Fiction - Art and Craft | 746.79 ARM | Onloan - Due: 17 Jul 2025 |
Find it!
Total copies: 1
Available: 0
Click and Collect for Threads of empire : a history of the world in twelve carpets