| Notes: |
Description: <i>Cloth and Human Experience</i> brings to light the properties of cloth that underlie its social and political contribution, the ritual and social domains in which people acknowledge these properties and give them meaning over time. This collection of thirteen essays by art historians, historians, and anthropologists probes the social and political significance of cloth from small scale societies to industrial ones. The volume offers great geographic breadth, with studies on Africa, India, Melanesia and Polynesia, Madagascar, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Peru, and Europe at the beginning of industrialization. One of the book's notable contributions is its dual materialist and symbolic focus, discussing not only cloth production and trade, but also cloth's symbolic value as a sacred and revered heirloom. The contributors also examine women's roles in cloth production and exchange, the female symbolism associated with cloth, and the value of cloth in relation to authority and power.
|
