Threads of Empire : A History of the World in Twelve Carpets - Dorothy Armstrong

Threads of Empire

A History of the World in Twelve Carpets

By: Dorothy Armstrong

Paperback | 27 May 2025 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $34.99

$28.50

19%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $7.13 with

Available: 27th May 2025

Preorder. Will ship when available.

A spellbinding look at the history of the world through the stories of twelve carpets

Beautiful, sensuous, and enigmatic, great carpets follow power. Emperors, shahs, sultans and samurai crave them as symbols of earthly domination. Shamans and priests desire them to evoke the spiritual realm. The world's 1% hunger after them as displays of extreme status. And yet these seductive objects are made by poor and illiterate weavers, using the most basic materials and crafts; hedgerow plants for dyes, fibres from domestic animals, and the millennia-old skills of interweaving warps, wefts and knots.

In Threads of Empire, Dorothy Armstrong tells the histories of some of the world's most fascinating carpets, exploring how these textiles came into being then were transformed as they moved across geography and time in the slipstream of the great. She shows why the world's powerful were drawn to them, but also asks what was happening in the weavers' lives, and how they were affected by events in the world outside their tent, village or workshop.

In its wide-ranging examination of these dazzling objects, from the 5th century BCE contents of the tombs of Scythian chieftains, to the carpets under the boots of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill at the 1945 Yalta Peace Conference, Threads of Empire uncovers a new, hitherto hidden past right beneath our feet.

More in General & World History

Uprising : War in the colony of New South Wales, 1838-1844 - Stephen Gapps
All or Nothing : How Trump Recaptured America - Michael Wolff

RRP $34.99

$28.50

19%
OFF
The CIA Book Club : The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War - Charlie English
The Journals of Captain Cook : Penguin Classics - James Cook

RRP $27.99

$23.75

15%
OFF
The War on the West : How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason - Douglas Murray
Humankind : A Hopeful History - Rutger Bregman

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Homo Deus : A Brief History of Tomorrow - Yuval Noah Harari

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Say Nothing : True Story Of Murder and Memory In Northern Ireland - Patrick Radden Keefe
The Happiest Man on Earth - Eddie Jaku

RRP $32.99

$19.00

42%
OFF
The Fatal Shore - Robert Hughes

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Less is More : How Degrowth Will Save the World - Jason Hickel

RRP $22.99

$20.35

11%
OFF
Guns, Germs And Steel : The Fates of Human Societies - Jared Diamond
Proto : How One Ancient Language Went Global - Laura Spinney

RRP $36.99

$29.75

20%
OFF
Repeat : A Warning from History - Dennis Glover

RRP $26.99

$22.95

15%
OFF
The Golden Road : How Ancient India Transformed the World - William Dalrymple
Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

RRP $27.99

$23.75

15%
OFF
The Hiding Place : How one courageous family triumphed over hate - Corrie Ten Boom