Book excerpt: Filled with hundreds of gorgeous examples, this book is a comprehensive study of European and American carpets and rugs from the Middle Ages to the present day. The rich and inventive tradition of European and American carpets continues to inspire artists, designers, and decorators, while collectors and historians increasingly value carpets as important works of art. In this comprehensive volume, Sarah Sherrill examines Western carpet design and production from the Middle Ages to the present, in styles that range from magnificent palatial creations to delightful folk designs. With hundreds of dazzling illustrations, Sherrill's authoritative text includes chapters on Moorish weavers and the golden age of carpets in Spain; the exquisite carpets of the Savonnerie, Aubusson, and Beauvais in France; productions from Moorfields, Exeter, and Axminster in England; the intriguing but little-studied rugs of Eastern European countries; the charming and resourceful rugs of America; and an important chapter on modern designs that offers an extensive survey of rugs created by leading artists and architects of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sherrill's stimulating text, based on years of research, brims with interesting new findings, not only on the history and design of these works, but also technological developments that had an often unrecognized effect on rug design and production. Supplementing the hundreds of reproductions of carpets are many views of the lavish rooms for which they were designed, as well as brilliant watercolor carpet designs, technical drawings clarifying weave and knot structures, and maps, making this an indispensable resource for historians, collectors, and anyone interested in beautiful furnishings and textiles. Sarah B. Sherrill, an authority on Western and Eastern carpets and rugs, has published many articles on the subject over the last two decades. She is on the faculty of The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts in New York and has taught in the graduate program in the history of decorative arts at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum/Parsons School of Design in New York. She is editor in chief of The Bard Graduate Center's journal Studies in the Decorative Arts and was an editor for over twenty years at the magazine Antiques. 400 illustrations