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.
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.
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Reviews
Handwoven carpets have long been regarded as a hallmark of civilisation. Sought after by the rich and powerful alike as markers of status they have likewise been acquired as trophies by conquerors keen to cement their victories. This excellent study by Dorothy Armstrong shows how, over millennia, these ultimate status symbols have both defined and been defined by the political cultures that produced them
Who knew that carpets contained such a wealth of fascinating history? Dorothy Armstrong for one, and she shares a lifetime's passion with enviable elegance, weaving her way across centuries and continents. The vocabulary of storytelling is threaded with metaphors straight from the loom; this book shows us why
Beautifully written and ceaselessly entertaining. If you read one book about carpets this year, make it this one
I am much enjoying this absorbing history of the world through the stories of twelve notable carpets. It tells engrossing tales of emperors, shahs, sultans and samurai, as well as the poor illiterate weavers who made them, and in the process sheds surprising light on the workings of empire
A revelation, about the making of carpets, and of markets, and of aesthetic taste. This beautiful book balances Dorothy Armstrong's expertise and her enthralling storytelling perfectly. The tale of each carpet as she tells it is untidy and tragic and comical all at once
A wonderfully conceived and very engagingly written window onto global culture, history and politics through the prism of carpets. Products of unknown, unnamed and often illiterate artists of the highest skill, especially from the continent of Asia, these textiles have formed the home-settings of nomadic and settled peoples from lowly farmers to the highest aristocracy, across the world. Armstrong's enthusiasm, historical and technical command of her field, and her deep knowledge of so much of world history shines through like a bolt of enlivening sunshine
A carpet has many stories to tell, from the time and place where it was woven by hand through to the time and place where it was used and cherished. This book helps us to locate that object in a unique way thanks to the many layered perspective that the author offers interweaving the personal and global, the political and the cultural, the historic and the intangible into a narrative that puts carpets, perhaps unknowingly, at the centre of the human experience