Episode 407 - Virginia Postrel

Journalist and scholar Virginia Postrel rejoins the show to talk about her brand-new book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made The World (Basic Books). We get into how textiles intersect with technology, culture, commerce, politics, and more, the long gestation of this book & the dress that started it all, humanity's textile-amnesia, and Virginia's reversal of Arthur C. Clarke's third law of technology. We discuss the textile skills she learned (or tried to learn) in prep for the book and how she's now the owner of several looms, the extensive travel she undertook for research, how the book wouldn't have been possible during the pandemic, the notion of civilization as both survival technology and a cumulative process, how social technologies were just as key as physical ones to our development, and more! Follow Virginia on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Vimeo • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal