Along with food and shelter, clothing must rank among the most important but least analysed sites of colonization. Few works, if any, take the necessary additional step of defining clothing as a component of spirituality. One of the main points made by Pallis in this essay is that clothing does not entirely make the person but that clothing does play a major part in forming and maintaining our identity, both spiritual and social.
He turns to materialist and historical analysis by looking at how modern tryannies, of the left and right variety, have attacked the spirtitual authorities in various cultures directly while also attacking spiritual authority indirectly by demanding or coercing people to abandon traditional dress and wear the uniforms of modernity.
