Three Camels to Smyrna
Times of War and Peace in Turkey, Persia, India, Afghanistan & Nepal 1907-1986: The Story of the Oriental Carpet Manufacturers Company
Antony Wynn
Postage will be calculated at checkout
Description
"The author weaves the company's history into the political background with skill and his feel for local people and realities informs every page..." - Asian Affairs
From the bazaars of Smyrna to the looms of Persia, Three Camels to Smyrna charts the rise and eventual closure of the Oriental Carpet Manufacturers (OCM), once the world’s largest carpet company. Antony Wynn, previously the OCM buyer in Iran in the years leading up to the Iranian Revolution, explores the conflicts, political uprisings and economic crises of the 20th century and how such events threw the carpet trade into turmoil. Wynn also considers the impact on the lives of those involved in the complex network of the trade, from weavers in remote villages to city merchants and the European financiers who backed them, bringing a human dimension to the story of OCM and the wider carpet trade.
About the Author
Antony Wynn studied Persian and Turkish at Balliol College, Oxford. Just before graduating, he answered an advertisement in The Times that led to a job as the Oriental Carpet Manufacturers’ (OCM) carpet buyer in Iran. The years he spent there sparked a lifelong connection with the region, and he went on to work across the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caspian. Decades later, OCM’s chairman invited him to write the company’s history, and the result was Three Camels to Smyrna.
