The dazzling cloths presented in this book are the visual record of one of the great untold stories of Asian design history: the trade in Indian textiles to Southeast and East Asia. Outstanding among them are the patterned cottons - the famous chintzes - and the tie-dyed silk patola, reserved for rulers and the nobility. John Guy examines the history of the cloth-for-spices trade, describes the techniques of textile production, and then looks in detail at the place of imported cloths in the Malay world, Indonesia, Thailand and Japan. The historical focus is on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the trade was at its peak.