There is not just one history of silk. Silk intertwines science, history, and mythology. The future lies in silk.

Aarathi Prasad's book titled Silk is a wonderful new story that combines the narrative of a unique material that has fascinated the world for millennia.

Through scientists who have studied silk and the biology of the animals from which it originates, Prasad explores the global history, natural history, and future of this unique material. Valued for its light weight, sheen, and beauty, silk is also one of the strongest biological materials known. More than a century ago, it was used to create the first bulletproof vest, yet science has only just begun to harness its potential.

As the technologies it has inspired—from sutures to pharmaceuticals, from disposable body parts to holograms—continue to be developed in labs around the world, they are also starting to offer a desperately needed, sustainable alternative to the plastics that are choking our planet.

Prasad's Silk is a cultural and biological history from the origins and ancient routes of silk to the biologists who uncovered the secrets of the animals that produce silk, manipulating the habitats and physiologies of worms, spiders, and mollusks. For there is more than one type of silk, there is more than one history of silk. More than one road, more than one people that discovered it and wove its threads.

From the worms of China, Indonesia, and India to the spiders of South America and Madagascar, as well as the silk-producing mollusks of the Mediterranean, Silk is a book rich in the passionate connections men and women of science have made with the diversity of the animal world. It is an intoxicating blend of biography, intellectual history, and scientific writing that enriches the human obsession with silk.

Pages: 368, Dimensions: 15.9x15.9cm