The paper trail : an unexpected history of a revolutionary invention /
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 y...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Alfred A. Knopf,
[2016]
|
| Edition: | First American edition. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | 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. |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | "Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Allen Lane in 2014"--copyright page. "A Borzoi book." |
| Physical Description: | 368 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780307271662 0307271668 |