Three Camels to Smyrna
Antony Wynn

The OCM was, in its day, by far the biggest manufacturer and exporter of oriental carpets of all. This book explores the recent history of the Near and Middle East as seen through the eyes of the men and women involved in the carpet trade. The author observed carpet weaving at first hand when he was the OCM buyer in Iran from 1972-6. Using the carpets as a connecting thread, he takes us through revolutions, wars and economic crises in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Tibet, Europe and America to show how, long before ‘globalisation’ became a word, seemingly unrelated political and economic events affected the lives of all those involved in the trade: from the weavers in their remote villages to the city merchants and the financiers in Europe who backed them. Few people have any idea of the dramas gone through by those who worked to bring oriental carpets, woven in the turbulent countries of the East, to the tranquil living rooms of the West. This book brings it all home.