This major new work comprises more than 1,000 images that highlight the beauty, subtlety, simplicity or complexity of textiles created around the world. The juxtaposition of historical and contemporary examples highlights the skill and imagination of textile designers throughout history, as well as the remarkable range of achievements. Thematic illustrated sections present in-depth knowledge and sweeping insights into the role textiles have played throughout all human civilization, and illuminate the ways in which structure or surface decoration or embellishment enhance this most tactile of arts. With a definitive text by Mary Schoeser, drawing together knowledge gathered over a liftime of immersion in the textile arts, no other book in the vast literature on the subject has so comprehensively celebrated the spectacular and enduring appeal of textiles.