Mei Mei Rado is assistant professor of history of textiles, dress, and decorative arts at Bard Graduate Center.

Shortlisted for the 2026 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award, sponsored by the CAA2026 Louis Gottschalk Prize winner, sponsored by ASECS“Full of innovative scholarship, The Empire’s New Cloth provides a new level of understanding about European textiles in a Qing imperial context. It will make a remarkable and crucial contribution to the field.”—John R. Finlay, author of Henri Bertin and the Representation of China in Eighteenth-Century France“The Empire’s New Cloth is a rich, original, and focused piece of research with exciting new insights for the global history of art and material culture.”—Lesley E. Miller, author of Selling Silks: A Merchant’s Sample Book 1764“The Empire’s New Cloth significantly changes our understanding of Sino-European interactions, especially the Qing emperors’ attitudes toward the West, in the long eighteenth century.”—Yu-chih Lai, Academia Sinica

Mei Mei Rado is assistant professor of history of textiles, dress, and decorative arts at Bard Graduate Center.

Shortlisted for the 2026 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award, sponsored by the CAA2026 Louis Gottschalk Prize winner, sponsored by ASECS“Full of innovative scholarship, The Empire’s New Cloth provides a new level of understanding about European textiles in a Qing imperial context. It will make a remarkable and crucial contribution to the field.”—John R. Finlay, author of Henri Bertin and the Representation of China in Eighteenth-Century France“The Empire’s New Cloth is a rich, original, and focused piece of research with exciting new insights for the global history of art and material culture.”—Lesley E. Miller, author of Selling Silks: A Merchant’s Sample Book 1764“The Empire’s New Cloth significantly changes our understanding of Sino-European interactions, especially the Qing emperors’ attitudes toward the West, in the long eighteenth century.”—Yu-chih Lai, Academia Sinica

Mei Mei Rado is assistant professor of history of textiles, dress, and decorative arts at Bard Graduate Center.

Shortlisted for the 2026 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award, sponsored by the CAA2026 Louis Gottschalk Prize winner, sponsored by ASECS“Full of innovative scholarship, The Empire’s New Cloth provides a new level of understanding about European textiles in a Qing imperial context. It will make a remarkable and crucial contribution to the field.”—John R. Finlay, author of Henri Bertin and the Representation of China in Eighteenth-Century France“The Empire’s New Cloth is a rich, original, and focused piece of research with exciting new insights for the global history of art and material culture.”—Lesley E. Miller, author of Selling Silks: A Merchant’s Sample Book 1764“The Empire’s New Cloth significantly changes our understanding of Sino-European interactions, especially the Qing emperors’ attitudes toward the West, in the long eighteenth century.”—Yu-chih Lai, Academia Sinica