How do you get a little thing of cotton, ra ers things o cotton, to make 29, 25 miles a threat? It's but the amazing thing, and this is what's so impressive about this, is people all around the world figured it out. Basically, what you have to do is you have to simultaneously stretch out and twist the thread. And the twisting makes it stronger, because it creates a kind of helix that the forces operate to hold it together.
Author and journalist Virginia Postrel talks about her book The Fabric of Civilization and How Textiles Made the World with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Postrel tells the fascinating story behind the clothes we wear and everything that goes into producing them throughout history. The history of textiles, Postrel argues, is a good way of understanding the history of the world.