The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization
448The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization
448Hardcover
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
In this groundbreaking book, Martin Puchner leads us on a remarkable journey through time and around the globe to reveal the how stories and literature have created the world we have today. Through sixteen foundational texts selected from more than four thousand years of world literature, he shows us how writing has inspired the rise and fall of empires and nations, the spark of philosophical and political ideas, and the birth of religious beliefs.
We meet Murasaki, a lady from eleventh-century Japan who wrote the first novel, The Tale of Genji, and follow the adventures of Miguel de Cervantes as he battles pirates, both seafaring and literary. We watch Goethe discover world literature in Sicily, and follow the rise in influence of The Communist Manifesto. Puchner takes us to Troy, Pergamum, and China, speaks with Nobel laureates Derek Walcott in the Caribbean and Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul, and introduces us to the wordsmiths of the oral epic Sunjata in West Africa. This delightful narrative also chronicles the inventions—writing technologies, the printing press, the book itself—that have shaped people, commerce, and history. In a book that Elaine Scarry has praised as “unique and spellbinding,” Puchner shows how literature turned our planet into a written world.
Praise for The Written World
“It’s with exhilaration . . . that one hails Martin Puchner’s book, which asserts not merely the importance of literature but its all-importance. . . . Storytelling is as human as breathing.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Puchner has a keen eye for the ironies of history. . . . His ideal is ‘world literature,’ a phrase he borrows from Goethe. . . . The breathtaking scope and infectious enthusiasm of this book are a tribute to that ideal.”—The Sunday Times (U.K.)
“Enthralling . . . Perfect reading for a long chilly night . . . [Puchner] brings these works and their origins to vivid life.”—BookPage
“Well worth a read, to find out how come we read.”—Margaret Atwood, via Twitter
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780812998931 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
Publication date: | 10/24/2017 |
Pages: | 448 |
Sales rank: | 942,384 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
chapter 1
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Written World"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Martin Puchner.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Earthrisk xi
Map and Timeline of the Written World xxiv
Chapter 1 Alexander's Pillo Book 3
Chapter 2 King of the Universe: of Gilgamesh and Ashurbanipal 24
Chapter 3 Ezra and the Creation of Holy Scripture 46
Chapter 4 Learning from the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus 62
Chapter 5 Murasaki and the Tale of Genji: The First Great Novel in World History 98
Chapter 6 One Thousand and One Nights with Scheherazade 121
Chapter 7 Gutenberg, Luther and the New Public of Print 145
Chapter 8 The Popol VUH and Maya Culture: A Second, Independent Literary Tradition 171
Chapter 9 Don Quixote and the Pirates 193
Chapter 10 Benjamin Franklin: Media Entrepreneur in the Republic of Letters 211
Chapter 11 World Literature: Goethe in Sicily 232
Chapter 12 Marx, Engels, Lenin, MAO: Readers of the Communist Manifesto, Unite! 252
Chapter 13 Akhmatova and Solzhenitsyn: Writing Against the Soviet State 273
Chapter 14 The Epic of Sunjata and the Worldsmiths of West Africa 290
Chapter 15 Postcolonial Literature: Derek Walcott, Poet of the Caribbean 306
Chapter 16 From Hogwarts to India 326
Acknowledgments 339
Notes 341
Illustration Credits 389
Index 393