For Textiles from the Middle East and Central Asia: The Fabric of Life, Fahmida Suleman has selected over 200 pieces from the more than 3,000 in the British Museum's collections of Middle Eastern and Central Asian textiles. For many of them, this is the first publication to date. The objects featured in the book are also mostly selected from the collection's main holdings, dating from the late eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, with significant exceptions. For the twenty-first century, several examples were made by contemporary artists and were acquired for the museum by the department of the Modern Middle East, of which Suleman is curator. Most of the objects featured in the book, however, were collected in the field by ethnographers, missionaries, and anthropologists. The objects' respective connections to daily use – tent bands, prayer carpets, saddle bags, garments – were no doubt made more obvious by their acquisition histories and the notes of their collectors.

In the introduction, Suleman concisely sets out some of the problems inherent in the study of textiles. Lack of precise dating and sometimes even geographic origin, combined with the generally non-mimetic nature of these pieces, forces art historians and scholars of material culture to seek alternate ways to study textiles. Suleman's decision to study their use (consumption) is not only sensible, but is perhaps the only way to make sense of such a wide variety of objects. The introduction also sets out the geographical parameters, which are bracketed by Egypt and Afghanistan, including the Arabian Peninsula and Asia Minor. Whether due to collecting habits or the selections for this volume, the Maghreb in the west and the subcontinent to the south-east are excluded. This, as well as the fact that some of the objects may be explicitly linked to Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian communities, precludes their collective designation as “Islamic”. While many are handsome and accomplished, they are also representative of types, rather than rare beauties or even luxury objects. These facts, too, help dictate the approach.

The book is organized around the anthropological thematics suggested in part by the objects themselves, including Childhood; Religion and belief; Marriage and ceremony; and House and homestead. Textiles, the author acknowledges, can be seen through many lenses, and many of her categories overlap substantially with others, as may be expected. This illustrates the immense and varied role of textiles in general, and the necessity of cloth and clothes to all sorts of human activity. Necessity does not preclude beauty. The textiles may be quotidian, but they are nonetheless highly decorative. A large proportion are embroidered (worked with a needle or tambour hook), and some also incorporate turquoise, coral, cowrie shells, beads, coins, and even human hair to effect motifs. Some of the materials were talismanic, apotropaic, or otherwise luck-bringing, while others use emblems or repeating patterns to effect the same hoped-for result. Other motifs and formats derive from different media, such as the fountains depicted on an Ottoman napkin, or imprecations found on a number of kaftans, hats, and hangings.

Despite the exclusion of South Asia, textiles from the subcontintent nonetheless feature. Indian brocaded satin was incorporated into a chapan (robe) from Uzbekistan. A Bahraini overdress was actually embroidered in Gujarat; in this case, its use as a gift to one of the British royals is significant. It is, however, one of the very few objects to have a direct connection with any imperial or royal centre, another factor which makes Suleman's anthropological approach useful. This contrasts with many books on Islamic textiles, which privilege those associated with palaces or sultans, no matter how distantly.

Each chapter begins with a brief general essay focussing on anthropological and/or historical contexts. Photos with captions and miniature essays follow, highlighting one or several objects. The photography is accomplished, combining overall views and details. The captions are minimal, giving date and geographical origin, dimensions, material, and inventory number. The fibres are also listed: cotton, silk, wool, and metal-wrapped thread give way to nylon, lurex, and polyester. Information about weave structure and dye stuffs is omitted, as are most details about embroidery stitches and other niceties. This is strategic: textile analysis is highly specialized and often of little interest to most readers. Also, the focus here is on consumption, which renders production a secondary concern. However, where such analysis does appear, one might legitimately choose to quibble with some terminology: “brocade” is not a structure, nor is “tapestry woven on taffeta”.

Among the thematic chapters is “Status and identity”, which navigates difficult distinctions: socio-economic, confessional, regional, ethnic, and gender-based. Almost all the objects are garments, and all but two made for women. Some respond to sumptuary law, such as Zoroastrian clothing, which could only be made of remnants. Also included in this chapter are a set of small-scale replicas of Palestinian head-gear from the turn of the twentieth century, a set of dolls in Palestinian dress from the 1950s–60s, and two more in the dress of the United Arab Emirates. Those interested in how the end of empire, colonialism, and modern nationalism interact with crystallizing templates for national attire will be glad of the publication of these objects and the avenues that they and other objects in the book present for future research.

These themes continue in the last chapter, “Politics and conflict”, which features Yasser Arafat's keffiyeh and Hamid Karzai's distinctive silk chapan, among other objects. Both keffiyeh and chapan are the work of nameless craftspeople, who probably worked in commercial settings. In keeping with the book's focus on consumption, the objects are discussed in terms of their use, which in these two cases is highly charged. Several of the other objects, though, are emblematic of one of the problems inherent in studying historical and contemporary craft and art, with an emphasis on craft, and in this case, with an emphasis on production. Two works from Sara Rahbar's Flag series (2008 and 2014) respectively combine embroidered and woven textiles from Iran, South Asia, and Central Asia with American flags. Rahbar is a contemporary artist as much as a craftsperson and her work is probably best understood within the paradigms of the international art market in the twenty-first century. The inclusion of her work here is an interesting and smart choice, revealing another role of textiles. However, the divisions it lays bare – between production and consumption, art and craft, nameless artisan and famous artist – warrant a longer discussion.

While outside the book's main concern with consumption contexts, a glossary would help most readers understand the meaning and significance of some of the terms related to production: jacquard fabrics, tablet looms, countered-soumak weaving techniques, and even ikat need more explanation. A glossary would also organize the prodigious vocabulary in different languages and regions Suleman has united in this work, allowing other curators with similar collections to follow her lead. The absence is partially mitigated by a substantial index including foreign terms and by a bibliography of recent works.

While 200 objects may be a small fraction of the British Museum's collection, it is a very large number indeed for a single publication. The Fabric of Life covers an admirable amount of ground – methodologically, chronologically, and geographically – and maps its wide territories with finesse.