Martin Puchner

The story of how literature shaped world history, in sixteen acts--from Alexander the Great and the Iliad to Don Quixote and Harry Potter In this groundbreaking book, Martin Puchner leads us on a remarkable journey through time and around the globe to reveal the powerful role stories and literature have played in creating the world we have today. Puchner introduces us to numerous visionaries as he explores sixteen foundational texts selected from more than four thousand years of world literature and reveals 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. Indeed, literature has touched the lives of generations and changed the course of history. At the heart of this book are works, some long-lost and rediscovered, that have shaped civilization: the first written masterpiece, the Epic of Gilgamesh; Ezra's Hebrew Bible, created as scripture; the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus; and the first great novel in world literature, The Tale of Genji, written by a Japanese woman known as Murasaki. Visiting Baghdad, Puchner tells of Scheherazade and the stories of One Thousand and One Nights, and in the Americas we watch the astonishing survival of the Maya epic Popol Vuh. Cervantes, who invented the modern novel, battles pirates both real (when he is taken prisoner) and literary (when a fake sequel to Don Quixote is published). We learn of Benjamin Franklin's pioneering work as a media entrepreneur, watch Goethe discover world literature in Sicily, and follow the rise in influence of The Communist Manifesto. We visit Troy, Pergamum, and China, and we speak with Nobel laureates Derek Walcott in the Caribbean and Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul, as well as the wordsmiths of the oral epic Sunjatain West Africa. Throughout The Written World, Puchner's delightful narrative also chronicles the inventions--writing technologies, the printing press, the book itself--that have shaped religion, politics, commerce, people, 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. "Well worth a read, to find out how come we read."--Margaret Atwood, via Twitter "A gripping intellectual odyssey."--Publishers Weekly "An expansive, exuberant survey of the central importance of literature in human culture but also a great adventure story."--Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve

From clay tablets to the printing press.From the pencil to the internet.From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Harry Potter.This is the true story of literature -- of how great texts and technologies have shaped cultures and civilizations and altered human history.The inventions of paper, the printing press and the world wide web are usually considered the major influences on the way we share stories. Less well known is the influence of Greek generals, Japanese court ladies, Spanish adventurers, Malian singers and American astronauts, and yet all of them played a crucial role in shaping and spreading literature as we know it today.The Written World tells the captivating story of the development of literature, where stories intersect with writing technologies like clay, stone, parchment, paper, printing presses and computers. Central to the development of religions, political movements and even nations, texts spread useful truths and frightening disinformation, and have the power to change lives. Through vivid storytelling and across a huge sweep of time, The Written World offers a new and enticing perspective on human history.

Z nočního stolku rovnou na bojiště. Ne náhodou si Alexandr Veliký pod polštář schovával Iliadu někde se pro svá velikášská tažení inspirovat musel. A kdyby nebylo tiskařské infrastruktury zavedené Benjaminem Franklinem, boj o americkou nezávislost by vypadal úplně jinak V hodinách češtiny a knižních recenzích čas od času zaznějí velká slova o síle literatury. Jsou však tvrzení o síle slova něčím víc než jen nudnými a nutnými frázemi? Literární historik Martin Puchner se ve svých jedinečných dějinách literatury snaží dokázat, že ano: knihy, eposy a manifesty nepovažuje za pouhé soubory písmenek s nějakým významem a nějakou tradicí, nýbrž je vnímá jako aktéry dějin. Jazyk, slova a literatura proto v jeho vyprávění dokážou dobývat území, formovat národy a definovat kulturu do takové míry, o jaké se klasické literární historii ani nesnilo.

Can anyone really own a culture? This magnificent account argues that the story of global civilisations is one of mixing, sharing, and borrowing. It shows how art forms have crisscrossed continents over centuries to produce masterpieces. From Nefertiti's lost city and the Islamic Golden Age to twentieth century Nigerian theatre and Modernist poetry, Martin Puchner explores how contact between different peoples has driven artistic innovation in every era - whilst cultural policing and purism have more often undermined the very societies they tried to protect. Travelling through Classical Greece, Ashoka's India, Tang dynasty China, and many other epochs, this triumphal new history reveals the crossing points which have not only inspired the humanities, but which have made us human.