A trailblazer of a book.

The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age

FitzSimons and Shaw have provided us with a clear and concise account of the way wool clothed the Allied armies that ground out the two victories of 1918 and 1945. The authors tell a truly global story, one worth remembering now that we live in another world dominated by synthetic fibers and the environmental menace we face today.

Jay Winter, Charles J. Stille Professor of History emeritus, Yale University and Editor of Cambridge History of the First World War

The story of war and wool in Fleeced is an engaging exploration of how geopolitical tensions and supply chain challenges shape modern material culture. Wool's natural qualities-fire resistance and warmth even when wet-were so prized that they sparked a synthetic textile revolution, ultimately contributing to today's fast fashion waste crisis.

Tricia Wilson Nguyen, PhD, Materials science and textiles engineer and embroidery historian

Fleeced is a more than welcome history of wool and war. Detailed and engaging, authors FitzSimons and Shaw document the convoluted logistics of wool supplies in wartime, from the American Civil War to the Cold War, revealing at the same time the settler violence and economic warfare that together impacted some 50 countries. Covering from about 1800 to today, their story reveals insightful family histories and is full of fascinating facts, including the tale of the bale of wool in a first-class seat on a flight to Italy. Not restricted to the economic history of the woolen industry, their extensive research discloses much about wool substitutes too: from stinging nettle, seaweed and paper yarns to rayon and synthetic fibers such as polyester, now accounting for over half of the world's production today.

Mary Schoeser, FRSA, author of World Textiles (Thames & Hudson World of Art series: 2022); Hon. Senior Research Fellow, V&A Research Institute; Patron, School of Textiles, Coggeshall

An engaging and at times intriguing account of the raw material of war - a book based on formidable scholarship, ambitious in a scope and genuinely transnational in its reach, compelling in its argument.

Bruce Scates, Professor of History specializing in war and memory, Australian National University

Fleeced weaves together a luminous and deeply layered history of wool from the uniforms worn on global battlefields, across lands and seas, through shoddy and substitutes to the cheap synthetics that spur today's fast fashion. Trish FitzSimons and Madelyn Shaw create a vivid picture of the natural fibre that sparked power and profit, drove empire and dispossession, and pushed science as its markets rose and fell.

Lorinda Cramer, PhD, Lecturer, Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies, Deakin University