Unravelled Dreams
Book description
One of the greatest hopes and expectations that accompanied American colonialism - from its earliest incarnation - was that Atlantic settlers would be able to locate new sources of raw silk, with which to satiate the boundless desire for luxurious fabrics in European markets. However, in spite of the great…
Why read it?
1 author picked Unravelled Dreams as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Across the globe, silks have been the most prized textiles for a very long time. They are also among the most expensive, owing to the difficulties and skills involved in cultivating silkworms, unreeling and spinning raw silk, and then weaving it into cloth.
Despite the complications involved, silk’s desirability led settlers throughout the colonial Americas to try time and again to establish silkworm-raising and silk-making enterprises. Their ambitions were just as repeatedly frustrated.
Ben Marsh’s beautifully written, deeply researched study tells why they kept trying and why they kept failing. When I first encountered this book, I wondered whether a…
From Robert's list on innovations in the first consumer revolution.
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