Bibliographic Information

Textile technology : spinning and reeling

by Dieter Kuhn

(Science and civilisation in China / by Joseph Needham ; with the research assistance of Wang Ling, v. 5 . Chemistry and chemical technology ; pt. 9)

Cambridge University Press, 1988

  • : hardback

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Note

Bibliography: p. 437-497

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This study, the first of two parts, gives a comprehensive account of Chinese textiles and textile technology and deals with the evolution of bast fibre spinning and silk-reeling in the history of China. These operations are the basic techniques in the production of yarn and thread, pre-requisite to weaving, and any study of Chinese textile technology must start with the raw material obtained from fibre plants such as hemp, ramie, jute, cotton, etc, and silk reeled off from cocoons of the domestic silkworm. The time-span covered runs from the neolithic to the nineteenth century. Archaeological and pictoral evidence, the bulk of it hitherto unpublished in the West, is brought together with Chinese textual sources (which are extensively translated and interpreted) to illustrate Chinese achievements in this field. Professor Kuhn's study reveals the way in which Chinese textile-technological inventiveness has influenced textile production in other regions of the world and in medieval Europe. It explains how textile technology reached its high point between the tenth and thirteenth centuries and attempts to indicate the reasons for its subsequent relative decline. The development of the textile industry in Europe was a key factor in the rise of capitalism. In the case of China after Sung times, textile technology and the organisation of textile labour may help indicate why such a development did not take place in China.

Table of Contents

  • List of illustrations
  • List of tables
  • List of abbreviations
  • Foreword Joseph Needham
  • Author's note
  • 31. Textile technology
  • Bibliographies
  • General index.

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Details

  • NCID
    BA03863539
  • ISBN
    • 9780521320214
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Cambridge
  • Pages/Volumes
    xxxiv, 520 p.
  • Size
    26 cm
  • Parent Bibliography ID
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