The meaning of cotton in the German-speaking world between 1500 and 1900

Hersteller:
Böhlau-Verlag GmbH u Cie.
ute.schnueckel@brill.com
Lindenstr. 14
DE 50674 Köln

Kim Siebenhüner ist Professorin für Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit an der Universität Jena.

There is a saying that cotton changed the world. Fabrics that for centuries had been imported predominantly from India first revolutionised the European textile industry, then the erstwhile polycentric world order. For some time now, it has positioned the history of textiles at the intersection of global history, the history of material culture and the history of consumption and shopping.

This volume explores this dichotomy by contextualizing cotton within its contemporary culture of textiles. In doing, it focuses on a long, under-researched region: the German-speaking world, particularly Switzerland, which transformed into one of the most prolific European regions for the production of printed cottons in the eighteenth century. Sixteen contributions investigate the (globally entangled) history of Indiennes, silk, wool, and embroideries, giving new insights into the manufacturing, marketing, and consumption of textiles between 1500 and 1900.