Description: A groundbreaking study of textiles as transcultural objects in the Qing court that provides a new understanding of the interconnectedness of the early modern world
Review Quotes: "Most of these dazzling silks and tapestries are locked away at the Beijing Palace Museum and are little known, so reading Mei Mei Rado's engaging analysis of them feels like watching an explorer unpack a treasure chest."--Burlington Magazine
"Remarkable. . . . [Rado] pulls back the lens to support a global approach that reveals mutual interest and tributary reciprocity of textiles between 18th-century East Asia and Europe."--Hyperallergic "An important contribution to an emergent and truly global history of art. . . . Captivating."--Michael Chang, Journal of Chinese History "Excavating the agency of threads, Rado focuses on material connections to break new ground in the history of art. . . . [The book] is likely to quickly become essential reading on eighteenth-century art and material culture in a global context."--Anna Grasskamp, caa.reviews Shortlisted for the 2026 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award, sponsored by the CAA 2026 Louis Gottschalk Prize winner, sponsored by ASECS "Full of innovative scholarship, The Empire's New Cloth provides a new level of understanding about European textiles in a Qing imperial context. It will make a remarkable and crucial contribution to the field."--John R. Finlay, author of Henri Bertin and the Representation of China in Eighteenth-Century France "The Empire's New Cloth is a rich, original, and focused piece of research with exciting new insights for the global history of art and material culture."--Lesley E. Miller, author of Selling Silks: A Merchant's Sample Book 1764 "The Empire's New Cloth significantly changes our understanding of Sino-European interactions, especially the Qing emperors' attitudes toward the West, in the long eighteenth century."--Yu-chih Lai, Academia Sinica