{"id":14011,"date":"2020-11-10T09:48:54","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T14:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=14011"},"modified":"2020-11-16T16:08:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T21:08:49","slug":"episode-407-virginia-postrel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-407-virginia-postrel","title":{"rendered":"Episode 407 – Virginia Postrel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 407:
\nVirginia Postrel<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_407_-_Virginia_Postrel.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

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“The history of textiles engages with the history of technology and science in interesting ways; it engages with economics and culture similarly.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Journalist and scholar Virginia Postrel<\/a> rejoins the show to celebrate her brand-new book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made The World<\/a> (Basic Books). We get into how textiles intersect with technology, culture, commerce, politics, and more, the long<\/em> gestation of this book & the dress that started it all, humanity’s textile-amnesia, and Virginia’s reversal of Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of technology<\/a>. We talk about the textile skills she learned (or tried to learn) in prep for the book and how she’s now the owner of several looms, the extensive travel she undertook for research, how the book wouldn’t have been possible during the pandemic, the notion of civilization as both survival technology and a cumulative process, how social technologies were just as key as physical ones to our development, and more! Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read The Fabric of Civilization<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“It’s fascinating to focus on the technology and the production of textiles, but the whole reason that we do all that stuff is because we want to have cloth to use. It’s all about the consumers, ultimately.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n