C. A. Bayly, “The origins of swadeshi (home industry): cloth and Indian society, 1700–1930,” In Arjun Appadurai (Ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (pp. 285-321). Cambridge University Press.
Antonia Finnane, How to Make a Mao Suit: Clothing the People of Communist China, 1949–1976 (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Introduction and chapter 1.
Some notes about the readings (from discussion leader Dr. Rachel Silberstein):
Chris Bayly's The Origins of Swadeshi looks at how the meanings of homespun cloth developed through the pre-colonial and colonial periods, partly in response to the import of European machine-made cloth. Chapter 1 from Antonia Finnane's newly published How to Make a Mao Suit charts the role of the Red Group tailors, the first Chinese tailors to master Western tailoring, in creating the Zhongshan suit. Introduction also included for further context (pp.20-24 provide a useful book outline).
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