Culture the story of us, from cave art to K-pop
"What good are the arts? Why should we care about the past? For millennia, humanity has sought to understand and transmit to future generations not just the "know-how" of life, but the "know-why"--The meaning and purpose of our existence, as expressed in art, architecture, r...
| Main Author: | Puchner, Martin, 1969- (Author) |
|---|---|
| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, NY :
W.W. Norton & Company,
[2023]
|
| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
Table of Contents:
- Preface: How culture works
- Introduction: Inside the Chauvet Cave, 35,000 BCE
- Queen Nefertiti and her faceless god
- Plato burns his tragedy and invents a history
- King Ashoka sends a message to the future
- A south Asian goddess in Pompeii
- A Buddhist pilgrim in search of ancient traces
- The Pillow Book and some perils of cultural diplomacy
- When Baghdad became a storehouse of wisdom
- The Queen of Ethiopia welcomes the raiders of the ark
- One Christian mystic and the three revivals of Europe
- The Aztec capital faces its European enemies and admirers
- A Portuguese sailor writes a global epic
- Enlightenment in Saint-Domingue and in a Parisian salon
- George Eliot promotes the science of the past
- A Japanese wave takes the world by storm
- The drama of Nigerian independence
- Epilogue: Will there be a library in 2114 CE?