Paper: Paging Through History

Description

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 created civilisations, fostering the fomenting of revolutions and the stabilising of regimes. History's greatest press run produced 6.5 billion copies of Mao zhu xi yu lu, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Zedong) and Leonardo da Vinci left behind only 15 paintings but 4,000 works on paper. Now, on the cusp of "going paperless"-and amid speculation about the effects of a digitally dependent society-we've come to a world-historic juncture to examine what paper means to civilisation. Through tracing paper's evolution, Mark Kurlansky challenges common assumptions about technology's influence, affirming that paper is here to stay. Paper will be the history that guides us forward in the twenty-first century.

Reviews

Curious, vital, prolific, and witty . Kurlansky s work makes brilliant use of paper as a key to civilization. "

Author description

Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times best-selling author of twenty-eight 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.