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Podcast: New Books in Art
Episode: Amanda Phillips, "Sea Change: Ottoman Textiles Between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean" (U California Press, 2021)
Description: Textiles were the second-most-traded commodity in world history, preceded only by grain. In the Ottoman Empire, in particular, the sale and exchange of silks, cottons, and woolens generated an immense amount of revenue. They touched every level of society, from rural women tending silkworms to pashas flaunting layers of watered camlet to merchants travelling to Mecca and beyond. Sea Change: Ottoman Textiles Between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean (U California Press, 2021) offers the first comprehensive history of the Ottoman textile sector, arguing that the trade's enduring success resulted from its openness to expertise and objects from far...