In the southernmost region of the African continent, women have been piecing together materials—textile construction techniques commonly used in quilting— to create bed coverings throughout the history of the San and Khoi peoples. From the late seventeenth century through the early nineteenth century, an influx of Dutch, French, Indian, and British military personnel, traders, miners, and missionaries came to South Africa, bringing with them their own cultural traditions, including making ...

**A bright portrait of modern Africa that pushes back against harmful stereotypes to tell a more comprehensive story.'Warm, funny, biting and essential reading.' Adam Rutherford'An exhilarating journey through the myths, misconceptions and stereotypes of modern Africa. This book is the history lesson that we all need.' Jeffrey Boakye, Guardian**You already know these stereotypes. So often Africa is depicted simplistically as an arid red landscape of famines...

****THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER****'An astonishing feat'Christina Patterson, Sunday Times'An inspiring and moving sideways look at history'Eithne Farry, Sunday Express**An eloquent blend of history and memoir, Threads of Life is an evocative and moving book about the need we all have to tell our story.From political propaganda in medieval France to secret treason in Tudor England, from the m...

'This riveting behind-the-scenes story of the clothes on our backs is a must-read for clotheshorses everywhere' Harper's Bazaar'Extraordinary . . . fascinating . . . a wonderful way into history, quite often through the voices of people who don't have a say in history' Cerys MatthewsLinen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool: through the stories of these five fabrics, Sofi Thanhauser illuminates the world we inhabit in a startling new way, trave...

In 1973, three young lawyers established Heenan Blaikie. It would become one of Canada’s highest-profile law firms, counting former prime ministers, premiers, and Supreme Court justices in its ranks. It was like a family, according to many who worked there. But it was a dysfunctional family. In 2014, the firm’s dramatic collapse became front-page news.Based on extensive interviews with firm lawyers and legal industry insiders, Heenan Blaikie is the story of a respected law...

One of Oprah.com's "17 Must-Read Books for the New Year" and O Magazine's "10 Titles to Pick up Now."“Exquisite in its honesty and truth and resilience, and a necessary chronicle from one of the greatest writers of our time. ”—Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Guardian, Best Books of 2016.“Every page ripples with a contagious faith in education and in the power of literature to shape the imagination and...

This essential book for all quilters and quilt collectors tells the fascinating story of quilting around the world, illuminated by the international quilt community’s top experts and more than 300 glorious color photographs. Covering Japan, China, Korea, and India; England, Ireland, France, and The Netherlands; Australia, Africa, Central America, North America, and beyond, Quilts Around the World explores both the diversity and common threads of quilting. Discover Aboriginal patch...

Considered one of the city's most notorious industrial slums in the 1940s and 1950s, Brownstone Brooklyn by the 1980s had become a post-industrial landscape of hip bars, yoga studios, and beautifully renovated, wildly expensive townhouses. In The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn, Suleiman Osman offers a groundbreaking history of this unexpected transformation. Challenging the conventional wisdom that New York City's renaissance started in the 1990s, Osman locates the origins of ge...

Craftivism is a worldwide movement that operates at the intersection where craft and activism meet; Craftivism the book is full of inspiration for crafters who want to create works that add to the greater good. With interviews and profiles of craftivists who are changing the world with their art, and through examples that range from community embroidery projects, stitching in prisons, revolutionary ceramics, AIDS activism, yarn bombing, and crafts that facilitate personal growth, ...

The time span covered by The Routledge History of Fashion and Dress starts in the nineteenth century, with the aftermath of the consumers’ revolution, and reaches all the way to the present. The fashion and garment industries have been international from the beginning and, as such, this volume looks at the history of fashion and dress through the lenses of both international and global history. Because fashion is also a multifaceted subject with humanagency at its core, at the con...

We live in the suburban era. Well over half of all Americans and two-thirds of Canadians live in suburbs. Tracts of suburban bungalows ring Sydney and Melbourne. Suburban apartments rise on the outskirts of Paris, Prague, Singapore, and Beijing. Nearly everyone has a strong opinion about suburbs. Folks who love dense cities scorn "suburbia," while people who like big yards dislike bustling sidewalks and subways. Social scientists argue whether contemporary suburbs are losing their luster o...

A CLASH MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024A lively, subversive history of the new UK jazz wave, encapsulating its revolutionary spirit and tracing its foundations to birth of the genre itself.'Not solely a book about jazz, or even a nascent cultural shift; it's a record of a pivotal moment in UK history.'BIG ISSUEBy the end of the last century, jazz music was con...