Böcker av Kassia St Clair

The unforgettable history of colours and the vivid stories behind them in a beautiful multi-coloured volume

** A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK **'Fascinating . . . The history of the world through the eye of a needle . . . I recommend this book to anyone' THE SPECTATOR'A charming, absorbing and history that takes us on a journey from the silk roads to sportswear, from ruffs to spacesuits . . . I devoured this quietly feminist book' SUNDAY TIMES'Joyful and beautiful' NATURE'Will make you rethink your relationship with fabric' ELLE DECORATIONAll textiles begin with a twist. From colourful 30,000-year old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to what the linen wrappings of Tutankhamun's mummy actually meant; from the Silk Roads to the woollen sails that helped the Vikings reach America 700 years before Columbus; from the lace ruffs that infuriated the puritans to the Indian calicoes and chintzes that powered the Industrial Revolution, our continuing reinvention of cloth tells fascinating stories of human ingenuity. When we talk of lives hanging by a thread, being interwoven, or part of the social fabric, we are part of a tradition that stretches back many thousands of years. Fabric has allowed us to achieve extraordinary things and survive in unlikely places, and this book shows you how -- and why.With a cast that includes Chinese empresses, Richard the Lionheart and Bing Crosby, Kassia St Clair takes us on the run with escaped slaves, climbing the slopes of Everest and moonwalking with astronauts. Running like a bright line through history, The Golden Thread offers an unforgettable adventure through our past, present and future.

The racers-an Italian prince and his chauffeur, a French racing driver, a con man, and several rival journalists-battle over steep inclines, through narrow mountain passages, and across the arid Gobi Desert. Competitors endure torrential rain and choking dust. There are barely any roads, and petrol is almost impossible to find. A global audience of millions follows each twist and turn, devouring reports telegraphed from the course.More than its many adventures, the Peking-to-Paris Motor Challenge took place on the precipice of a new world. As the twentieth century dawned, imperial regimes in China and Russia were crumbling, paving the way for the rise of communist ones. The electric telegraph was rapidly transforming modern communication, and with it, the news media, commerce, and politics. Suspended between the old and the new, the Peking-to-Paris, as best-selling historian Kassia St. Clair writes, became a critical tipping point.A gripping, immersive narrative of the race, The Race to the Future sets the drivers' derring-do (and occasional cheating) against the backdrop of a larger geopolitical and technological race to the future. Interweaving events from the fall of the Qing dynasty to the departure of the horse economy and the rise of gendered marketing, St. Clair shows how the Peking-to-Paris provided an impetus for profound social, cultural, and industrial change, while masterfully capturing the mounting tensions between nations and empires-all building up to the cataclysmic event that changed everything: the First World War."Consistently mind-boggling, often funny, and occasionally hair-raising" (Philip Ball), The Race to the Future is the incredible true story of the quest against the odds that propelled us along the road to modernity.

In June 1907 five automobiles, with sponsors including Louis Vuitton, Pirelli, Dunlop and Mumm Champagne, roared over a start line near the Forbidden City in Beijing. Two continents, two months and 8,000 miles later, they had changed the world.Their quest took the racers over mountain ranges, through forests and across deserts. With few roads, they drove on muddy tracks amidst donkeys, carts and people on foot. Their automobiles crashed through spindly wooden bridges and had to be floated across rivers. Rifts developed between rival participants and a global audience followed every twist and turn with bated breath, devouring reports telegraphed to journalists across the world.The Peking-Paris took place on the precipice of a new world, born out of profound social, cultural and technological change. Race to the Future is not only a gripping, immersive narrative of the race, capturing the unbelievable events that took place, but it is a kaleidoscopic exposé revealing how this overlooked moment in history shaped how we live today.From the departure of the horse economy and birth of the automobile, gendered marketing and the secret history of women in motoring, and the invention of the telegraph and emergence of global mass media, to the Communist Revolution in Russia, mass production in America, the subsequent rivalry between the countries, and the First World War, which ultimately redefined the course of history.