Virginia Postrel, author of The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, describes how the pursuit of textiles has led to a vast variety of innovations throughout history. Notably, the launch of the Industrial Revolution started with the machines that mechanized the spinning of thread.

The term luddite, which has now come to mean “people who have [an] ideological opposition to technology,” started with textiles. The original Luddites of the 19th century were weavers who rioted when they began losing their jobs to power looms.

Postrel states that human beings throughout the world and across history independently discovered different processes for creating cloth. She goes on to say that “weaving is something that is deeply mathematical… It seems to be this kind of human activity that’s thinking in ones and zeros that’s anticipating our modern computer age.”

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VIRGINIA POSTREL:

Virginia Postrel is an author and speaker whose work spans a broad range of topics, from social science to fashion, concentrating on the intersection of culture, commerce, and technology. Postrel has also been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Forbes and its companion technology magazine, Forbes ASAP. Her latest book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, examines the development of technology, industry, and commerce through the history of textiles, from prehistoric times to the near future.

Check out Virginia Postrel's latest book "The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World" at https://amzn.to/2RZwJu5

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