ABSTRACT
The relevance of a global history of textile production over a long period of time is clear: textile products cater for a basic human need, they are among the most important goods fabricated and traded by mankind and have thus played a central role in human activities throughout history. It is therefore no wonder that historians have paid so much attention to the basic processes in producing textiles: spinning and weaving. Numerous regional and national studies on developments in the production of and trade in textiles have been published. Moreover textiles have also been at the centre of several crucial historical debates. Theories on proto-industrialization, the Industrial Revolution, technological and business history, the history of taste and fashion and the gendered division of labour often take the textile industry as a point of reference. 1
