• [ network ]
  • goatmatrix.net
  • gvid.tv
  • img.gvid.tv
  • games.gvid.tv
  • apps.gvid.tv
HomeUploadUpload DirectHotlinkRandomAbouttheme toggle
Expand

The History of Fabric Is the History of Civilization

Views:926
@ReasonVids

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

------------------
Full text and links: https://reason.com/video/2020/11/23/the-history-of-fabric-is-the-history-of-civilization/

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magazine
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason

Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
----------------

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

libertarian
,
reason magazine
,
reason.com
,
reason.tv
,
reasontv
    Thumbnail for Charles Koch and Brian Hooks on Learning From Your Critics1:00:18
    Charles Koch and Brian Hooks on Learning From Your Critics
    ReasonVids
    814 views
    Thumbnail for Enemies of Freedom, a North Korea Tour, & More: Reason's 45th Anniversary Issue5:07
    Enemies of Freedom, a North Korea Tour, & More: Reason's 45th Anniversary Issue
    ReasonVids
    1053 views
    Thumbnail for Ai Weiwei's Hirshhorn Show Has Everything but the Dissident Artist Himself5:48
    Ai Weiwei's Hirshhorn Show Has Everything but the Dissident Artist Himself
    ReasonVids
    964 views
    Thumbnail for What Should Have Happened at the Brett Kavanaugh Hearings4:15
    What Should Have Happened at the Brett Kavanaugh Hearings
    ReasonVids
    957 views
    Thumbnail for FDR, The New Deal, and The Expansion of Federal Power with Authors Burton and Anita Folsom9:30
    FDR, The New Deal, and The Expansion of Federal Power with Authors Burton and Anita Folsom
    ReasonVids
    900 views
    Thumbnail for 3 Policies More Racist Than Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy2:10
    3 Policies More Racist Than Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy
    ReasonVids
    926 views
    Thumbnail for What's The Correct Libertarian Position on Abortion? A Soho Forum Debate1:27:12
    What's The Correct Libertarian Position on Abortion? A Soho Forum Debate
    ReasonVids
    804 views
    Thumbnail for 3 More Reasons to Fear the IRS1:32
    3 More Reasons to Fear the IRS
    ReasonVids
    944 views
    Thumbnail for What Will the End of the Drug War Mean for Addicts? Look to Oregon.11:51
    What Will the End of the Drug War Mean for Addicts? Look to Oregon.
    ReasonVids
    1052 views
    Thumbnail for Hernando de Soto Knows How To Make the Third World Richer than the First20:52
    Hernando de Soto Knows How To Make the Third World Richer than the First
    ReasonVids
    879 views
    Thumbnail for George Will's Uphill Battle Against Trump’s GOP and the Democratic Socialist Left41:04
    George Will's Uphill Battle Against Trump’s GOP and the Democratic Socialist Left
    ReasonVids
    1119 views
    Thumbnail for Border Runners 3 The Embrownening18:33
    Border Runners 3 The Embrownening
    murdochmurdoch
    1355 views
    Thumbnail for Banned: Welcome to Nanny State Nation3:48
    Banned: Welcome to Nanny State Nation
    ReasonVids
    950 views
    Thumbnail for Ukraine Traps & Checkmates Russia in Kursk | Business Basics24:39
    Ukraine Traps & Checkmates Russia in Kursk | Business Basics
    invidious
    275 views
    Thumbnail for 3 of the Most F*cked Up Ways the Feds are Controlling Sex Work5:41
    3 of the Most F*cked Up Ways the Feds are Controlling Sex Work
    ReasonVids
    1034 views
    Thumbnail for Navigation through a name maze in Zeepkist | justMaki7:19
    Navigation through a name maze in Zeepkist | justMaki
    Zeepkist.topic
    670 views
    Thumbnail for Abigail Shrier Worries Teenage Gender Transitions Lead to 'Irreversible Damage'1:01:43
    Abigail Shrier Worries Teenage Gender Transitions Lead to 'Irreversible Damage'
    ReasonVids
    1019 views
    Thumbnail for Banned 1937 Tex Avery Cartoon "Uncle Tom's Bungalow" 8:33
    Banned 1937 Tex Avery Cartoon "Uncle Tom's Bungalow"
    bestofupgoat
    169 views
    Thumbnail for 4 Takeaways from SCOTUS Gay Marriage Ruling1:13
    4 Takeaways from SCOTUS Gay Marriage Ruling
    ReasonVids
    941 views
    Thumbnail for Science Denialism on the Left: Sex, Gender, and Trans Identity4:10
    Science Denialism on the Left: Sex, Gender, and Trans Identity
    ReasonVids
    1063 views
    Thumbnail for The GOP Is Wrong About Sanctuary Cities6:15
    The GOP Is Wrong About Sanctuary Cities
    ReasonVids
    1013 views
    Thumbnail for Atlas Shrugged Part II: Behind the Scenes1:35
    Atlas Shrugged Part II: Behind the Scenes
    ReasonVids
    900 views
    Thumbnail for Amy Coney Barrett Will Be Better for Freedom than Ruth Bader Ginsburg4:53
    Amy Coney Barrett Will Be Better for Freedom than Ruth Bader Ginsburg
    ReasonVids
    983 views
    Thumbnail for What's a liberaltarian and how is it different than a libertarian?2:18
    What's a liberaltarian and how is it different than a libertarian?
    ReasonVids
    996 views
    Thumbnail for What Should Have Happened at the GameStop Hearing6:25
    What Should Have Happened at the GameStop Hearing
    ReasonVids
    1048 views

points

Permalink
Reply
libertarian
,
reason magazine
,
reason.com
,
reason.tv
,
reasontv
TOS  •  Add Keywords  •  Donate  •   Analytics  •   DMCA  •   Puzzle