By dividing carpets into four categories - tribal, cottage industry, workshop and court, the author shows the reader how to begin to trace the likely origins of carpets, to understand how they are made, and to appreciate how and why patterns differ. This approach, which depends not on learning names, but on a much broader understanding, draws the reader into a world in which carpet-weaving is a way of life, closely bound up with centuries of tradition. Since 1979 the author has travelled extensively in Turkey, Iran and Central Asia, studying tribal life and culture.