Book excerpt: Unique in its variety, the Newberry Collection consists of Indian textile fragments of outstanding historical importance, and is the largest in the world of its kind. Primarily block-printed cotton, many of the textiles were exported to Egypt as part of the pre-European indian Ocean trade.Some date back to the eleventh century CE. Ruth Barnes's catalogue is destined to become a standard work of reference for any future research on historical textiles, and represents the first detailed research on the subject since the 1930s. It benefits both from recent carbon-dating of the material,and from the latest archaeological research.The collection contains unique examples of the continuity of the trade of textiles from the thirteenth to the late nineteenth century throughout the Indian Ocean. Dr Barnes demonstrates the singular economic importance of this trade; her analysis redefines the material where necessary, in additionto discussing production, function, and sylistic peculiarities.