Description

There is not just one story of silk In silk is science history and mythology In silk is the future

Aarathi Prasads Silk is a gorgeous new history weaving together the story of a unique material that has fascinated the world for millennia

Through the scientists who have studied silk and the biology of the animals from which it has been drawn Prasad explores the global history natural history and future of a unique material that has fascinated the world for millennia
For silk prized for its lightness luminosity and beauty is also one of the strongest biological materials ever known More than a century ago it was used to make the first bulletproof vest and yet science has barely even begun to tap its potential As the technologies it has inspired from sutures to pharmaceuticals replacement body parts to holograms continue to be developed in laboratories around the world they are now also beginning to offer a desperately needed sustainable alternative to the plastics choking our planet
Prasads Silk is a cultural and biological history from the origins and ancient routes of silk to the biologists who learned the secrets of silkproducing animals manipulating the habitats and physiologies of moths spiders and molluscs Because there is more than one silk there is more than one story of silk More than one road more than one people who discovered it and wove its threads
From the moths of China Indonesia and India to the spiders of South America and Madagascar to the silkproducing molluscs of the Mediterranean Silk is a book rich in the passionate connections made by women and men of science to the diversity of the animal world It is an intoxicating mix of biography intellectual history and science writing that brings to life the human obsession with silk