On Paper by Nicholas A. Basbanes
The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History
A vivid cultural and material history of paper that traces its invention in ancient China, its spread across the Islamic world and Europe, and its central role in communication, art, commerce and bureaucracy; combining technical explanations of papermaking and printing with human stories of collectors, conservators, archivists and bibliophiles, it examines how paper's physical properties shaped the production and preservation of knowledge and how industrialization and acidic wood-pulp processes threatened long-term survivability, while also reflecting on the bookish obsessions, detective stories, and archival mysteries that animate libraries and private collections and asking what paper's future will be in the digital age.
- Published
- 2013
- Nationality
- American
- Length
- Long
- Pages
- 624 pages
- Original Language
- English
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- Alternate Titles
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