Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by omarahmad
The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, and Civilization by Martin Puchner
5.0
Ad astra per aspera:
As Professor of Comparative Literature, Martin Puchner has obviously read a lot of stories. His latest offering, however, is a powerful testament to his gift for storytelling.
Ambitious in it's scope vis-à-vis time and space by chronicling the impact of storytelling with regard to shaping people, history and civilizations during the past 5,000 years; from the origins of Cuneiform script in the ancient Mesopotamian town of Uruk which resulted in 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' (the first 'Foundational Text' known to man); the Jewish experience of the return from the Babylonian diaspora and Ezra's invention of the papyrus scroll (Sacred Text); the rebels of the Axial Age who never committed words to paper (Buddha, Confucius, Socrates and Jesus); The Popol Vuh of the Mayas; Goethe's personal voyage of discovery into the heart of 'World Literature', a term he initially coined; The roguish life and experiences of Cervantes and his immortal Don Quixote; The Post-colonial prose of Derek Walcott and his Homeric mythology of Omeros down to Scheherazade and her bawdy Arabian Nights are just a few of the many landmarks along this fascinating odyssey.
Furthermore, if you don't know the difference between parchment and papyrus and the technicalities regarding folios and codices or want to know the how / where paper was invented and how extraordinary the Gutenberg revolution really was, this is the book for you.
As Professor of Comparative Literature, Martin Puchner has obviously read a lot of stories. His latest offering, however, is a powerful testament to his gift for storytelling.
Ambitious in it's scope vis-à-vis time and space by chronicling the impact of storytelling with regard to shaping people, history and civilizations during the past 5,000 years; from the origins of Cuneiform script in the ancient Mesopotamian town of Uruk which resulted in 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' (the first 'Foundational Text' known to man); the Jewish experience of the return from the Babylonian diaspora and Ezra's invention of the papyrus scroll (Sacred Text); the rebels of the Axial Age who never committed words to paper (Buddha, Confucius, Socrates and Jesus); The Popol Vuh of the Mayas; Goethe's personal voyage of discovery into the heart of 'World Literature', a term he initially coined; The roguish life and experiences of Cervantes and his immortal Don Quixote; The Post-colonial prose of Derek Walcott and his Homeric mythology of Omeros down to Scheherazade and her bawdy Arabian Nights are just a few of the many landmarks along this fascinating odyssey.
Furthermore, if you don't know the difference between parchment and papyrus and the technicalities regarding folios and codices or want to know the how / where paper was invented and how extraordinary the Gutenberg revolution really was, this is the book for you.