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Paper: Paging Through History - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Paper: Paging Through History

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From the New York Times best-selling author of Cod and Salt, a definitive history of paper and the astonishing ways it has shaped today’s world.

Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art; it has formed the foundation of civilizations, promoting revolutions and restoring stability. By tracing paper’s evolution from antiquity to the present, with an emphasis on the contributions made in Asia and the Middle East, Mark Kurlansky challenges common assumptions about technology’s influence, affirming that paper is here to stay. Paper will be the commodity history that guides us forward in the twenty-first century and illuminates our times.

ISBN-13: 9780393353709

Media Type: Paperback(Reprint)

Publisher: Norton W. W. & Company Inc.

Publication Date: 05-23-2017

Pages: 416

Product Dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times best-selling author of twenty-nine books and a former foreign correspondent for The International Herald Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, The Miami Herald, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Technological Fallacy xiii

Chapter 1 Being Human 1

Chapter 2 The Moths that Circle a Chinese Candle 22

Chapter 3 The Islamic Birth of Literacy 48

Chapter 4 And Where is Xátiva? 66

Chapter 5 Europe Between Two Felts 76

Chapter 6 Making Words Soar 98

Chapter 7 The Art of Printing 115

Chapter 8 Out from Mainz 132

Chapter 9 Tenochtitlán and the Blue-Eyed Devil 147

Chapter 10 The Trumpet Call 162

Chapter 11 Rembrandt's Discovery 167

Chapter 12 The Traitorous Corruption of England 179

Chapter 13 Papering Independence 205

Chapter 14 Diderot's Promise 226

Chapter 15 Invitation from a Wasp 245

Chapter 16 Advantages in the Head 256

Chapter 17 To Die Like Gentlemen 275

Chapter 18 Return to Asia 293

Epilogue: Change 323

Appendix: Timeline 337

Acknowledgments 345

Bibliography 347

Index 355