The dazzlingly varied cloths presented in this book are the visual record of one of the great stories of Asian design history: the trade in Indian textiles to Southeast and East Asia. Alongside a wealth of illustrations, 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 vibrantly coloured and patterned textiles themselves, vivid first-hand descriptions by travellers and merchants, historic images of people and places, related arts and ethnographic studies, this book is both an indispensable resource and a visual feast for all students and lovers of textiles.