The Book : A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time download FB2, MOBI
9780393244793 English 0393244792 Long repositories of human history and imagination, books themselves possess as rich a backstory as the words on their pages. Spanning cultures and civilizations, The Book crafts an invitingly tactile history of this 1,500-year-old medium, examining the development of paper, text and printing, the art of illustrations, and binding.Packed with fascinating stories of inventors striving to make a better book, from King Eumenes II of ancient Pergamon, who embraced parchment when war halted exports of Egyptian papyrus, to Cai Lun, the scheming eunuch who claimed to have invented paper, and James Paige, the snake-oil salesman whose typesetting machine almost bankrupted Mark Twain, The Book traces how modern books evolved from their centuries-old ancestors.As paper threatens to give way to pixels, Keith Houston gives us a affectionate, wonderfully illustrated, four-color ode to the most important information technology of all., We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pagesof civilizations, empires, human ingenuity, and madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations, and binding to show how we have moved from cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls to the hardcovers and paperbacks of today. Sure to delight book lovers of all stripes with its lush, full-color illustrations, The Book gives us the momentous and surprising history behind humanity's most importantand universalinformation technology.
9780393244793 English 0393244792 Long repositories of human history and imagination, books themselves possess as rich a backstory as the words on their pages. Spanning cultures and civilizations, The Book crafts an invitingly tactile history of this 1,500-year-old medium, examining the development of paper, text and printing, the art of illustrations, and binding.Packed with fascinating stories of inventors striving to make a better book, from King Eumenes II of ancient Pergamon, who embraced parchment when war halted exports of Egyptian papyrus, to Cai Lun, the scheming eunuch who claimed to have invented paper, and James Paige, the snake-oil salesman whose typesetting machine almost bankrupted Mark Twain, The Book traces how modern books evolved from their centuries-old ancestors.As paper threatens to give way to pixels, Keith Houston gives us a affectionate, wonderfully illustrated, four-color ode to the most important information technology of all., We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pagesof civilizations, empires, human ingenuity, and madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations, and binding to show how we have moved from cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls to the hardcovers and paperbacks of today. Sure to delight book lovers of all stripes with its lush, full-color illustrations, The Book gives us the momentous and surprising history behind humanity's most importantand universalinformation technology.