John Guy examines the history of the cloth-for-spices trade, focusing on the 17th and 18th centuries when the thousand-year-old trade was at is peak.

With beautiful photographs of the textiles themselves (outstanding among them the famous cotton chintzes and the tie-and-dye silk patola), illuminating images of people and places, and vivid first-hand descriptions by travellers and merchants, this is both an indispensable resource and a visual feast for all students and lovers of textiles.