Legend says that nearly five thousand years ago, a silkworm cocoon dropped into the Empress Lei Zu's cup of hot tea - and as she drew it out, a single shining thread began to unwind. From that moment, silk would become the most guarded secret of the ancient world, the cloth of emperors, and the cargo that gave its name to the greatest trade route in history.

The Origins and Development of Silk: The Road that Connected the Ancient World follows this remarkable fibre from the mulberry groves of ancient China, along the desert caravan routes of the Silk Road, through Byzantine intrigue, the silk cities of Italy and France, and Japan's Meiji transformation, to today's global commodity market.

Inside you'll discover:

• The legends, biology and archaeology behind the world's first luxury fibre
• The Silk Road, the Parthian middlemen and the Maritime Silk Road
• How two monks smuggled silkworms into Byzantium
• Lucca, Florence, Venice and Lyon - and the Jacquard loom that changed weaving forever
• Japan's model filatures and the rise of the Yokohama silk trade
• How silk is shipped, graded, contracted, priced and traded today
• The legal, regulatory, compliance and sustainability framework
• The customs and silk cultures of the major producing and consuming nations

Written for general readers, students and trade professionals alike, this book is Volume 4 in The Origins of Trade series - A Journey Round the World - an engaging, authoritative account of the thread that connected the world.