This author clearly did a TON of research. It’s pretty densely packed, so if you’re into the science, genetics, and natural history elements of fabric, you’ll probably get into this. I appreciated Prasad’s attempt to humanize all this data by trying to expand on the scientists or researchers’ lives and backgrounds. I think I was looking for a stronger narrative thread to pull it all together, and I found it hard to retain all the information. Maybe it’s just because I was listening to a lot of Articles of Interest lately, but I think this could have been more successful for me as a Podcast series, where we have more time to situate these facts in the broader global history.

nonfiction, historical-figures, historical-places-events, historical-research, history-and-culture, history-trivia, lepidoptery, cloth-and-clothing, fashion, science-nerd, scientist, scientific-method, research-and-development*****

A historical/scientific perspective on the natural production and a global perspective of silk throughout many civilizations over the course of time. It is a fantastic textbook filled with related facts (think Chinese Dynasties to parachute silk) interspersed with fun tidbits to keep the student on track. Think history meets science meets lepidoptery meets fashion. It is very detailed and hardly the sort of thing to read in one sitting. This book packs an amazing amount of material between its covers and should be reread at measurable intervals. There are reproductions of historical lithographs.
I requested and received a temporary EARC from William Morrow via NetGalley. Thank you!
Think about getting a copy for your local public library, too!

I struggled to maintain interest in this book. The exhaustive detail with which Prasad recounts everything known to man about silkworms, silk-producing mollusks, and spider silk outpaced whatever initial curiosity I had for the subject. I did finish the book, but more out of a sense of obligation than any desire to know more. It's clear that Prasad has assembled a huge amount of research, but I wish large chunks of it had been cut.

The book is also oddly eurocentric given the topic. For a material that is most associated with Asian countries like China, Japan, and India, the history is shown exclusively through the lens of European and American scientists and industrialists. It's just a strange choice.

Several reviews have mentioned the inclusion of the showdown at the OK Corral and Genghis Kahn in the book as highlights of how interesting the history of silk can be. You should know that these are minor entries that do not get mentioned until the final 20% of the book.

Silk by Aarathi Prasad is a discussion about silk which spans time. The book reads like a novel, not a non-fiction book. Prasad describes the process of using silk worms that eat Mulberry leaves and make cocoons made of silk threads which people then use to make clothing. There are wild and domesticated species of silk worms which people have used for making garments for centuries.

Interestingly, there are many types of silk which people have used to create garments. Some people have experimented with using spider silk which apparently makes very strong and satiny material. The only problem is keeping the spiders separated so they don’t eat each other. Some people have used the threads from bivalves to create garments and gloves used by royalty. There are moths across the globe that make cocoons whose silks are used by people. Some people have discovered ways of using the silk worm silk without harming the worms.

Prasad has compiled information that is delivered in an informative and fascinating way. The story of silk is not just of the past, but also of uses for the future to replace oil based materials which are biodegradable and do not cause harm to the earth. There are uses in medicine for silk. This book is full of useful information and well worth reading.

Being a fiber artist, I jumped at the chance to read an advance copy of this when it came my way. Silk!
This is not a book about fabric, it's a book about the animals that produce various kinds of silk fibers, and in most cases the scientists who tried to figure out how they could be more easily harvested and used. So you have to come to it with proper expectations. Prasad is a scientist and comes to this subject with a detailed understanding of the biology of the animals in question, and there is a lot of zoological information here.
At first, I was very put off by this - I'm not a scientist and kept waiting for information about how the different kinds of silk work in cloth. It's not there. Once I realized what kind of book this was, I was able to somewhat adjust my attitude and get more out of it. I never knew exactly what sea silk is, for example, and although it was very popular in blends with wool a decade or two ago, evidently the mollusks that produce it are now endangered and so there isn't sea silk anymore. The history of the bombyx sericulture in China was not unfamiliar, but the range of wild-gathered silks in India (muga, eri...) is something I've only barely heard about. The people who tried to find ways to harvest spider silk were, as Prasad says, obsessed to the point of doing slightly weird things to harvest the silk right out of the spider. While I believe what she says about the properties of spider silk, I'm not inclined to want to seek any of that out.
Her ultimate conclusions about the future of silk in a world that is going to have to stop making fabrics out of toxic substances (petrochemical fibers like acrylic) or natural fibers that cause environmental devastation by what's needed to grow and process them (cotton) were thought-provoking, and I hope we can return to fibers like wool and silk (despite PETA's deranged publicity campaigns, shearing sheep does NOT harm them...don't get me started on that! sheep MUST be sheared at least annually to remain healthy).
Since the book is not about cloth, there are no gorgeous pictures other than the one on the cover. If you have a biological bent at all and are interested in the history and technology of various kinds of silk, I recommend this. If you want to know about how the different kinds of silk work in fabric applications, maybe the Worm Spit website is still running?
Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read an advance copy of this book.

This was a comprehensive, informative overview of the different types of naturally produced silk and the insects, arachnids, and mollusks who are capable of doing so. When hearing about historical silk production, the silkworm is the first to come to mind. I enjoyed learning more about how silk is produced and how these differences are represented in the clothing and fibers of different cultures. In-depth descriptions of the naturalists and scientists who studied natural silk production are given, but I would have liked more discussion of the cultural aspect of silk and silk garments. This is addressed to some degree in the later chapters of the book, and I wish there has been more of a balance between the science of silk and its historical and societal impact. Prior to this book, I did not realize that silk has many applications outside of textiles, and I am definitely more curious about the properties of silk. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in naturalism or anyone who wants to learn more about just how impactful and important silk is/has been to our lives.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher William Morrow for an advance copy of the this new book on a history of a fiber that has captivated, and held many in its web, and one that still has the ability to both stun in fashion, and fascinate for the innovations that are still being discovered.

As a person who enjoys both science fiction and history I have always been annoyed by shows that talk about great strides humans made in the past, and how they must of had hope help from aliens in someway. How could primitive humans build this, how could primitive humans create that? What made people think a small creature could make a material that could be made into clothing? Granted a look at our political landscape, and a few minutes on social media will make most people think we are the dumbest generation. This intellectual curiosity sprung in many ways from need. Today we flick a swith to turn on a light, or to give us heat. Clothing comes from a touchscreen, ordered will sitting on the couch. Human survival once depended on skills and crafts. That and the fact that even our ancestors liked nice things. Silk: A World History, is a story about the making of nice things, how silk was cultivated, the uses ideas and many of the odd people and circumstances that draw people to silks carefully threaded together in this book by Aarathi Prasad.

Silk is a fascinating construct, one of the strongest biological materials constructed. Prasad begins the book with her own tales of working with silk, seeing the dresses made by her mother and aunts. Prasad was also able to get some silkworms of her own, fed them with mulberry leaves and watch as they turned into moths. Prasad looks at some of the people involved in early studies of the silkworm, of a woman who had wealth and the ability to paint nature and her own explorations into silkworms, and the Vatican scholar who spent most of his life determining how silkworms work. Prasad looks at the early cultivators in the East, and how other people in far different countries were able to cultivate different animals for their own silk manufacturing. Silk appears in quite a few different historical situations from assassinations to famous gunfights, and even now humans are still finding new uses for silk in the medical field.

A book that one would expect to quite simple, but one that really travels time, space human ingenuity, and the wonder of nature. There is a lot about science, biology, even the history of science, but there is also a lot of tales of thinkers, odd fellows and odd ladies, and new views of history. The science might seem alot, but Prasad is a very good writer and is able to parse it all in such a way that everything makes sense. The biology, the anatomy might seem odd, but one understands at the again. Prasad also has an interesting style, a literate style especially in dealing with these silk devotees. Slightly removed, but with a style that really keeps the reader interested. The book does not have a chronological structure, approaching different themes, historical events, and then spinning off in different directions the next chapter.

A very interesting science book, and one that I learned quite a lot from about different subjects. One I think quite a lot of people will also want to wrap themselves in.

I found this book to be extremely education and interesting. While the writing was fairly scientifically written, it was not too difficult to understand. I really enjoyed that the book took you on a journey through time, learning about silk at different points in history, and learning about those who were researching different silk moths. A lot of history was covered in this book, it really felt like a deep dive into the topic. The portion on sea silk was probably my favorite, as someone who has worked with mollusks in the past. It was not a topic I knew a lot about before hand, but after reading Silk I definitely do.

(4.5 ✶) Silk: A World History is a high-quality entry into the micro-history genre. Befitting its subtitle, it is a truly global history of silk, from silkworms, from spiders, and even from the Pinna Nobilis fan mussel. An aspect that I appreciated was the way that the author wove in various familiar stories, and explained how silk tied into them; the gunfight at the OK Corral, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, telling the story of the material through telling the story of people. I appreciated the forward-looking section of potential future uses of silk, although many of them I would assume are farther off than may be clear in the text.

As ambitious in scope as it is detailed in execution, Silk: A World History is a delightful tour of the history of this unique and world shaping fabric.

Beginning with the evolution of silkworms as a species, this book covers everything conceivably related to the topic, from initial human domestication of the insects, to the many and ever increasing uses of silk, as well as the other animals, like mussels and spiders that produce silks of their own. From earliest history to the cutting edge of advanced technologies, no stone if left unturned. Though this book covers a lot of ground it does so in a way that feels organic and evenly paced, one never feels bogged down with minutiae or bored with details. The author adds a personal touch to their writing so you really get a sense of the key players, historical figures as well as the silkworms themselves. Overall this was a very satisfying book about a topic I knew next to nothing about.

After reading I have a far greater appreciation for and understanding of what makes silk unique among fabrics and the key role it has played throughout human history.

I received an uncorrected e-proof ARC of “Silk: A World History” by Aarathi Prasad from NetGalley and William Morrow/HarpersCollins Publishing in exchange for an honest review. Prasad’s microhistory of silk—from its earliest time to the present—is a fascinating tale and one that many readers will be excited to hear about, particularly people who are interested in textiles, science, and scientific history.

It appears that Prasad modeled this book on Kurlansky’s 2002 “Salt: A World History.” In fact, all one needs to do is to compare both title pages. Like Kurlansky, Prasad arranged this book in three sections (Part One: Moths; Part Two: Silken Shells, Golden Orbs; and Part Three: Reinvention) and used a total of twenty-six chapters. And like Kurlansky, Prasad also avoided the use of in-text citations, footnotes, and endnotes within the text in order to appeal to a general readership. However, there was one main difference between both published microhistories: language.

Prasad’s text is more “scientific” than Kurlansky’s. And when I say that, I’m not being negative. Prasad is an academic and we are trained to write in a certain style and to use particular formats. However, while our training ensures that we can write scholarly articles, get published in prestigious journals, and understand what other scientists are saying (and writing), it often interferes with our abilities to grab the public’s attention.

Fans of Kurlansky’s previous works will notice the difference. Kurlansky gives information in a way that is both easily and quickly absorbed, interspersing data from multiple cultures and eras. Prasad, on the other hand, focuses more on a single subject at a single time—providing more detailed information with a writing style that is more geared towards an educated public. Once again, this isn’t bad, it’s just different. What readers will appreciate about Prasad’s book over Kurlansky’s, though, is that Prasad has credentials; she’s an academic scholar. And it is this scholarship that I admire and trust.

Before reading this book, I had no idea that silk was manufactured from species other than the Bombyx mori silkworm—like other silkworms, mollusks, crustaceans, and even spiders. I was always under the impression that silk was only produced in ancient times in China, but Prasad revealed how silk was actually woven by South American indigenous tribes and Indians, among others.

Prasad wove each of the chapters together seamlessly and she was able to take me, as a reader, on an exciting voyage around the world. While Kurlansky did the same, he focused most of his writing on Western societies, and in particular, Europe and the United States. I believe that Prasad paid far more attention to non-Western societies and non-Western people, which really is a breath of fresh air. And while Kurlansky’s “Salt: A World History” dedicated a single chapter on IIndia—focusing on salt and Gandhi—Prasad was able to take us further back in time to show how wild silk was produced by an ancient civilization.

I definitely recommend this book and do believe that it would, and will, appeal to the legion of Kurlansky fans. However, while Prasad does replicate the format of the book, the writing style is entirely different, so readers should not expect a carbon copy of Kurlansky. Instead, readers will find an extremely informative, reliable, well-written, and fascinating history of silk and silk production around the world that is written by what appears to be a formidable scientist.

I am a weaver and I think I'm going to recommend this for guild book club. It really is a detailed, almost exhaustive history of silk. It covered everything from literal production to the uses to individual entomologists. Truly fascinating stuff. It wasn't too dense but it was packed with info!

Listen, any author that can write about silk and somehow insert a section on the Gunfight at the OK Corral deserves a lot of credit. Aarathi Prasad's Silk contains many of these anecdotes and, unfortunately, it becomes a problem.

Prasad is writing about silk from a global perspective. This is billed as a cultural and biological history of the material. Prasad has done tremendous research. There is so much in this book to learn about and no stone is left unturned. However, I found myself very detached from the book. I was very confused by this feeling because there is excellent work done in this book, but I realized it never really became a fluid and complete story.

The main issue is that although silk is the subject of the book, Prasad regularly jumps between time periods and characters. There is a lot of dates in this book and it becomes very distracting. Characters will emerge in stories and then might disappear before reappearing chapters later. As a reader, I found myself checking out and searching for the next cool fact even though it felt unconnected from everything else. Ultimately, I learned a lot about the material we call silk, but I can't quite explain what Prasad wanted me to take from this as a theme.

I would not warn anyone away from this book, but I would warn people that you need to be very interested in the topic before diving in.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and William Morrow.)

This book was a great mix of history, science and culture. It was chockfull of information, yet it was so accessible and easy to read.