关于中国最奢华的纺织品及其对中华文明和艺术的持久影响的第一部全面历史。

在过去的五十年中，中国的考古探索挖掘出大量的纺织材料，有些可以追溯到五千年前。在这本经过大量研究和插图精美的书中，西方和中国的杰出学者利用这些引人入胜的发现，提供了有史以来最详尽的丝绸历史介绍。

这本广度上百科全书式的著作从考古，技术，艺术史和美学等多种角度按时间顺序介绍了丝绸的历史。几位撰稿人探索了普通丝绸和高档丝绸的使用范围。通过将最新发现的纺织品与中国浩瀚的历史文献中的特定参考文献直接联系起来，它们阐明了制丝业的发展以及推动数千年的创新纺织品诞生的社会力量。

The first comprehensive history of China's most luxurious textile and its enduring influence on Chinese civilization and art

Over the past fifty years, archaeological explorations in China have unearthed a wealth of textile materials, some dating as far back as five thousand years. In this magnificently researched and illustrated book, preeminent Western and Chinese scholars draw upon these spectacular discoveries to provide the most thorough account of the history of silk ever written.

Encyclopedic in breadth, the volume presents a chronological history of silk from a variety of perspectives, including archaeological, technological, art historical, and aesthetic. The contributors explore the range of uses for silk, from the everyday to the sublime. By directly connecting recently found textile artifacts to specific references in China's vast historical literature, they illuminate the evolution of silk making and the driving social forces that have inspired the creation of innovative textiles through the millennia.