The paper trail
Subtitle: an unexpected history of a revolutionary invention
By: Alexander Monro
Edition: First American Edition.
Publisher: Knopf; Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9780307271662
Subjects: TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / History; Paper; LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Literacy; Papermaking; HISTORY / Civilization; History
Description: "Comprehensively researched, vividly written, The Paper Trail traces the cultural, political, and religious revolutions that this now globally ubiquitous material set in motion when it was new to the world. Alexander Monro--who has lived in, traveled through, studied, and written about China for many years--takes us from paper's refinement in 2nd century A.D. China, where it was used to solidify social and political systems that continue to influence the country today . . . to its use in the dissemination of the religions of Buddhism and Manichaeism . . . to its adoption in the Islamic world where it embedded the Koran in popular culture . . . to its role (together with printing) in the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. It is a dramatic, surprising story populated by holy men and scholars, warriors and poets, war-makers and peacekeepers--a story we have never heard in its entirety before, brilliantly told in this luminous work of history"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Tracing Paper; title: Alpha and Omega; title: Preparing the Soil; title: Genesis; title: At the Margins; title: Paper Rain; title: Papyrocracy; title: The Handover; title: Bibliophiles; title: Building Books; title: A New Music; title: Bagdatixon and its Ologies; title: A Continent Divides; title: Translating Europe; title: A New Dialogue; title: By the Cartload; title: Epilogue : Fading Trails.