Summary: Virginia Postrel’s book weaves a sweeping history of textiles as both drivers of innovation and toil. Virginia Postrel’s The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World is the riveting story of how humanity’s quest for thread, cloth, and clothing built modern civilization, by motivating achievements from the Neolithic Revolution to the Industrial Revolution and more. Postrel estimates that, in Roman times, it took a woman about 909 hours—or 114 days, almost 4 months—to spin enough wool into yarn for a single toga. Most preindustrial women devoted enormous amounts of time to producing thread, which they learned how to make during childhood. It is not an exaggeration to say, as Postrel does, “Most preindustrial women spent their lives spinning.” This was true across much of the world.