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    Paper: Paging Through History
    Paper: Paging Through History
    Paper: Paging Through History
    Audiobook13 hours

    Paper: Paging Through History

    Written by Mark Kurlansky

    Narrated by Andrew Garman

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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. One has only to look at history's greatest press run, which produced 6.5 billion copies of Mao zhuxi yulu, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Zedong)which doesn't include editions in 37 foreign languages and in brailleto appreciate the range and influence of a single publication, in paper. Or take the fact that one of history's most revered artists, Leonardo da Vinci, left behind only 15 paintings but 4,000 works on paper. And though the colonies were at the time calling for a boycott of all British goods, the one exception they made speaks to the essentiality of the material; they penned the Declaration of Independence on British paper. Now, amid discussion of "going paperless"and as speculation about the effects of a digitally dependent society grows rampantwe've come to a world-historic juncture. Thousands of years ago, Socrates and Plato warned that written language would be the end of "true knowledge," replacing the need to excise memory and think through complex questions. Similar arguments were made about the switch from handwritten to printed books, and today about the role of computer technology. 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 10, 2016
    ISBN9781501923906
    Paper: Paging Through History
    Author

    Mark Kurlansky

    Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times bestselling author of Milk!, Havana, Paper, The Big Oyster, 1968, Salt, The Basque History of the World, Cod, and Salmon, among other titles. He has received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Bon Appétit's Food Writer of the Year Award, the James Beard Award, and the Glenfiddich Award. He lives in New York City. www.markkurlansky.com

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    Reviews for Paper

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    • 5/5
      I accidently read this twice. The first two thirds are dense and forgettable. Kurlanski could do a better job making characters of the past come to life (like Bryson does). But he nails it when he talks about the topic as it is in modern times. I recommend.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Great book about paper and love the historic detail and stories. Great book to listen too.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Mark Kurlansky - what's not to love? Kurlansky, author of Salt, Cod, The Basque History of the World and Birdseye, does it again - this time on paper.The history of paper and its impact on the world is given the Kurlansky treatment in "Paper: Paging Through History." That is, it is a history of paper, and a history of civilization through the object of paper.The story is well-told, starting in China, slowly moving west, with innovations along the way, including more sophisticated papermaking, printing and finally the intrusion of computers. Kurlansky makes a good case that technology doesn't bring about change, but that change requires new technology. If the Chinese weren't such bureaucrats, they wouldn't have needed paper to keep records, etc. This book proceeds chronologically, and ends by debunking the oft-held argument that computers will replace paper, but we know by now that is not the case. New technology rarely wipes out the old, it just offers a new path.Kurlansky also manages to weave insights from his other legendary books (cited above) into his tale of paper - because everything is connected somehow, and he's found the connections again. With Kurlansky's next book, Havana, don't be surprised if paper somehow plays a key role in it.For more of my reviews, go to Ralphsbooks.
    • 4/5
      Loaded with information, read in an enthusiastic and well modulated voice. Too much information to grasp at one reading. I will probably reread it.
    • 3/5
      Paper is about what you expect, and overview of the history of paper throughout history, from ancient China to modern day. I'm a fan of micro-histories, especially Kurlansky's last book, Salt, and this was was no exception.

      Just as much a story of the history of writing, the paper industry, and the book industry as paper itself, Kurlansky tells the reader about pre-paper writing surfaces such as papyrus and tablets as well. The invention of paper allowed for an explosion of ideas and culture as a lightweight, fairly durable, and most of all cheap surface to write and draw on spread across the world. I did not realize before reading this how critical rags were to paper, and how important they were to society, as rags were what paper was made from before the ability to turn trees into paper. Kurlanksy takes the reader though ancient history through to medieval, colonial, industrial, and modern eras and everything in between.

      While fun, the book does have some weak points, namely the latter third to half turns into a history of random things done on paper (and he particularly loves wood carvings), plus after the first section of the book Kurlansky abandons a focus on Asian papermaking in favor of the West, only coming back for one chapter at the end with no real explanation.

      It's a fun read if you like microhistories, but it's by no means a must read. I'd like to give it 3.5 stars, but Goodreads restricts me to whole stars.
    • 4/5
      Turns out paper is not that interesting but this book makes the most of it. It cheats a lot by including lots of interesting history only tangentially related to paper.
    • 4/5
      Not quite as engaging as some of his other works, but a very interesting history of something we see as so common! Always give a thumbs up to any book that is not totally Euro-centric.
    • 3/5
      This was a most frustrating book to read. It's a bit like Moby Dick: a grab bag of anecdotes, recipes, fragments of history, thrown in with a bit of travel writing. Kurlansky has given us a history of paper and he's more or less followed his own time-line that is printed at the back of the book. But with something like paper which has been developed, invented, modified, in many countries and many times over, I'm not sure that this is necessarily the best approach. Certainly, I found the anecdotal style annoying a lot of the time. We seem to be just bombarded with little snippets of history and also with some of Kulansky's prejudices....such as the observation on p296 that the (Chinese) cities have been ruined by high rise buildings. My impressions are that modern Chinese would prefer to live in a modern apartment than in a cold, leaky, wooden hovel....no matter how picturesque.Since first writing this review I've read a few other reviews and must say that some of the reviewer's comments resonated with me. For example, one reviewer said that she thought the author had taken his notes on a bunch of 5x8 cards then just thrown them on the floor and put the book together as he's picked up the cards. A bit harsh...but it does have this feel about it. (Though, at least he's tried to put the cards in chronological order). The second reviewer made the observation that one section of the book was just a collection of data about mills in Europe that quickly became overwhelming ...just one mill after another. And I agree: it is overwhelming. Was it necessary to the story? I don't think so. Personally, I would have liked to see a little more in the way of illustration of the paper making art. I've watched it at close quarters in Japan but I think the book would have benefited by more high quality illustrations. And I'm not sure that his historical approach is necessarily the best way to proceed with a book like this. It inevitably has us jumping from China to Germany, to England, to France, to Holland, to The USA, then back to China, then Japan. ....It's the kind of "jumpiness" the I disliked so much with Moby Dick. What would be a better way to proceed? I'm not sure...but maybe focusing on some aspects of the technology...say the moulds....or the techniques used to make paper. Kurlansky...does have a view that he pushes fairly consistently and that is; inventions respond to changes in demand they do not lead to changes in demand. So the availability of printed books did not lead to increased literacy ....rather increased literacy led to increased demand for books. Well maybe he is right on this score ...I'm not sure. But, say, with the invention of the transistor....nobody quite knew what that was going to lead to. In the 1950's we thought it an absolute wonder that we could have a transistor radio (instead of a crystal set) ....but there was not too much talk at that time about personal computers or phones that could draw on a world wide web of data. My point being that the transistor was an invention the spawned new devices that hadn't even been thought about when it was invented. (I guess one could always argue that there was a pent up demand there for all those devices but really I think Kurlansky's claim is over-reach). I also found it slightly annoying that in his discussion of the polluting effects of paper making the he never really asks the obvious question of why don't the paper mills recycle their own water instead of treating it and then feeding it back into the rivers? Clearly, they're not treating it well enough. He has also obviously been to visit a few sites; the Glatfelter mill at Spring Grove, near Gettysburg; and the artisans producing hand made paper in the Basque country in Northern Spain.....because (I feel) he treats us to a slightly romanticised version of each....maybe a little too much detail because it highlights the fact that he hasn't really visited all the other places he writes about with such authority. OK...it was a bit annoying in style (or construction) but there are still a lot of interesting facts and interesting information covered. I was a little mystified about the way he dismisses the Mexican manufacture of amate as "not paper". Personally, I don't agree.It's basically the same process that is used elsewhere in the world. You take fibrous material (bark) boil it down (with an alkali) ..soften and beat out the fibres then overlay the fibres into a flat sheet. They do this by beating it out with a pounder rather than by floating a suspension in water and using a mould... but the process is essentially the same and the end result more or less the same as paper. Also he says p154 that the Mexicans make a lye powder made from soaking maize. I think this is quite wrong. You don't get a lye powder from soaking maize. Rather, the Mexicans soak the hard maize seeds in a lime solution to soften the epicarp (the hard yellow casing of the maize seed) so that they can then make "masa" and from that make the corn tortillas. So, the same kind of lime solution (or similar) is used for treating the inner bark of the fig tree to produce the amate. And, whilst on the subject of Mexico...maybe we get a little too much of the history of the conquistadores rather than keeping the focus on paper. Overall. Yes it's interesting. Yes there is a lot of information there. But overall, I found it a bit of a jumble.....three stars from me.
    • 4/5
      I'm a big fan of Mark Kurlansky, but this isn't my favourite of his books. It seems like there wasn't quite enough to say about paper as the book ranges pretty widely. That said, he did stay largely in the realm of paper's role in technological development (and vice versa) and could have gone more deeply into literary and cultural influences.Still, as always, I learned a lot and this author makes me think. I liked his concept of the technological fallacy of invention changing culture...he's of the necessity is the mother of invention school. I think this may have been more true in the past. Today, we have planned obsolescence and constant small changes in technology...is each new software version or iPhone really necessary? He also made me realize that the things we worry about don't change....paper was going to displace the memory required of the oral tradition, and now we worry that voice dialing and google will replace memory.So read it...and read his books about cod and about salt, too.
    • 4/5
      I enjoy books like these tremendously and more readers might pick up this book if the title were changed to On Papyrus, Paper, Woodcuts, Printing and Printmakers, Type, Calligraphy, Books and Related Topics throughout Global History for the work is truly an emporium of information on all of the above topics written in a casual, history-rich manner that keeps one reading later than expected into the evening.

      As a museum docent, I'm constantly looking for those little stories and facts that enrich newcomers' interest in artefacts and this volume left me with many -- for example the role that textile pattern blocks may have played in helping to develop woodblock prints and books, or how the compass, which was known to the Chinese by the 3rd century BCE is not mentioned in European sources until 1190. Or that the Arab ink developed for parchment had such a high acid content that it ate through paper initiating the use of a new type of ink (midad) based on lampblack, similar to that used by the Chinese. How handwriting changed paper. How paper changed art. How paper shortages in some countries were the source of laws forbidding the export of rags (cellulose being a key ingredient of paper). How an uprooted tree in Cumberland in 1565 was the discovery of graphite and the graphite pencil. Printing's impact on music. And how the best art and calligraphy paper during China's Tang Dynasty (618-907) came from the bark of blue sandalwood (Pteroceltis tatarinowii)--and remains so today. The list is almost endless and the read fascinating.

      This book is another 'keeper'--a reference work readers will want to return to with "What did he say about European artists and Japanese paper again?" queries, and be able to find the right page as the Index, contrary to many contemporary works, is very well constructed (as is the Bibliography). Only one irony--after finishing this work, I was curious about the paper the book was printed on--its source for one (having read that much of the world's paper today comes from China making "China the largest importer of used paper and the largest maker of recycled paper in the world" (p. 294). Ironically, there was an End Note on the Type, but not the paper.
    • 4/5
      An interesting look at world history through the perspective of an single product - paper. This book is valuable for its approach to technology (paper was high tech at one point) and its discussion of the intersections of society and technology. The author points out, repeatedly, that a new technology's success is dependent on the needs of the society it is introduced into. Hence, an unneeded technology is unlikely to be successful or widely adopted. A fascinating history, complete with a commentary on today's move to more electronic products over print and a convincing argument that print isn't quite dead yet.