{"product_id":"white-magic-9780745672533","title":"White Magic","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaper is older than the printing press, and even in its unprinted state it was the great network medium behind the emergence of modern civilization. In the shape of bills, banknotes and accounting books it was indispensible to the economy. As forms and files it was essential to bureaucracy. As letters it became the setting for the invention of the modern soul, and as newsprint it became a stage for politics. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this brilliant new book Lothar Müller describes how paper made its way from China through the Arab world to Europe, where it permeated everyday life in a variety of formats from the thirteenth century onwards, and how the paper technology revolution of the nineteenth century paved the way for the creation of the modern daily press. His key witnesses are the works of Rabelais and Grimmelshausen, Balzac and Herman Melville, James Joyce and Paul Valéry. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMüller writes not only about books, however: he also writes about pamphlets, playing cards, papercutting a\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Balanced and intelligent... Even those who are happy with e-books will be grateful to Muller's publishers for printing \u003ci\u003eWhite Magic\u003c\/i\u003e on good, thick, creamy paper and including, at the end, a dozen blank pages, all of which I have covered with untidy, handwritten notes, to make this mechanical mass-produced artifact intimately my own.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"A richly sprawling history\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"A panoramic literary-historical work reminiscent of Erich Auerbach's Mimesis\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"What a great read! It is a book to warm up the brain on a day of mental fog.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eInside Higher Education\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Most of this erudite, engaging work is concerned with the rise of paper and its dominance as civilisation's archive and its role as a 'metaphorical resource': the origin of phrases such as 'a blank page'. As well as being a historical account of the way paper came to permeate every aspect of life, Muller mines European literature for the role paper has played in the stories we tell ourselves.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eSydney Morning Herald\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Lothar Müller... tells an alternative history of paper. He argues, convincingly, that paper has been, and continues to be, integral to our civilisation and the modern world. Through a carefully structured sequence of illuminating vignettes, he brings together fascinating facts from across the globe and the centuries to reveal the long-running and fundamental impact of paper on human life, work and culture.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eTimes Higher Education\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Müller's work leaves the reader admiring something that feels magical.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"...the tale that Lothar Müller spins in \u003ci\u003eWhite Magic: The Age of Paper\u003c\/i\u003e is one that brings paper—as both physical material and a playing field on which the human imagination can run wild—to vivid life. Incorporating a wealth of historical detail, technical information, and critical analysis, Müller makes his account lively and compelling, giving paper a personality and substance that is on par with any words that may appear on it. In his book, paper is not just the silent partner of the printing press. Instead, it is an extremely versatile substance—one whose uses and forms shape human thought and behavior in many ways.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Nomadic Press\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"As paper increasingly fades into history, the story of its role and evolution is at risk of being lost, erasing the roadmap that brought us to the digital era. Lothar Müller's \u003ci\u003eWhite Magic: The Age of Paper\u003c\/i\u003e goes a long way to averting that fate, going back in time to record and describe in intricate detail how paper came to be, and what it came to be.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eSouth China Morning Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Consistently readable and highly entertaining, this witty and learned book deftly decouples paper's history from the story of printing to tell new and surprising tales about a medium that continues to pervade our daily life. You'll never look at a blank page in quite the same way again.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eCatherine Robson, New York University\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"This is an absorbing history of paper, fascinating in its detail and magisterial in its scope. Muller writes with the authority of a scholar and the imagination of a poet, filling his book with curious but essential facts and astute perceptions. It is a delight to read.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eJeremy Adler, King's College London\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Müller's history of paper is original, engaging and breathtakingly erudite. It explores paper in its materiality, but also as a source of inspiration which has shaped the history of knowledge and creativity. In tracing paper's vital role in the development of human civilisation, the author also argues for its continued importance in the digital age.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eCarolin Duttlinger, Wadham College, Oxford\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Lothar Müller set out dazzling new insights into the creation of our world, building on Harold Innis’ work on the long and complex emergence of paper. Unique in his \u003ci\u003eWhite Magic\u003c\/i\u003e is his subtle blending of cultural and media history with sociological understanding and literary reflexion.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003ePhilippe Despoix, Center of Intermedial Research in Arts, Literatures and Technologies, Université de Montréal\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThanks viii\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePROLOGUE The Microbe Experiment ix\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePART ONE The Diffusion of Paper in Europe 1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 1 Leaves from Samarkand 3\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.1 The Arab Intermediate Realm 3\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.2 Calligraphy and the Cairo Wastepaper Basket 10\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.3 In Scheherazade’s World 13\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.4 Timur and Suleika 17\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 2 The Rustling Grows Louder 22\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.1 The European Paper Mill Boom 22\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.2 Paper, Scholars, and Playing Cards 26\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.3 The Rise of the File: Paper Kings, Chanceries, and Secretaries 31\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.4 The Merchant of Genoa and His Silent Partner 37\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.5 Ragpickers, Writers, and the Pulpit 46\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 3 The Universal Substance 52\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.1 Marshall McLuhan and the Pantagruelion of Rabelais 52\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.2 Harold Innis, the Postal System, and Mephisto’s Scrap 61\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.3 The World in a Page: Watermarks, Formats, Colors 70\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePART TWO Behind the Type Area 79\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 1 The Printed and the Unprinted 81\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.1 The Pitfalls of a Formula: “From Script to Print” 81\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.2 The White Page 85\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.3 “Found among the Papers ...” 89\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 2 Adventurers and Paper 94\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.1 Don Quixote, the Print Shop, and the Pen 94\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.2 Picaresque Paper: Simplicius Simplicissimus and the Schermesser 99\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.3 Robinson’s Journal, Ink, and Time 104\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 3 Transparent Typography 108\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.1 The Epistolary Novel’s Mimicry of Letter Paper 108\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.2 Laurence Sterne, the Straight Line, and the Marbled Page 115\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.3 The Fragmentation of the Printed Page: Jean Paul, Lichtenberg, and Excerpts 119\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePART THREE The Great Expansion 127\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 1 The Demons of the Paper Machine 129\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.1 The Mechanization of Sheet-Making 129\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.2 The Loom of Time, the French Revolution, and Credit 140\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.3 Balzac, Journalism, and the Paper Scheme in Lost Illusions 152\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.4 The Secrets of the Scriveners: Charles Dickens and Mr. Nemo 163\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.5 Foolscap and Factory Workers: Herman Melville and the Paper Machine 168\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 2 Newsprint and the Emergence of the Popular Press 180\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.1 The Boundless Resource Base 180\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.2 The Newspaper, the Price of Paper, and the Patrioteer 189\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2.3 Émile Zola, the Petit Journal, and the Dreyfus Affair 196\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 3 Illuminated Inner Worlds 201\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.1 Wilhelm Dilthey, Historism, and Literary Estates 201\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.2 Henry James, Edith Wharton, and the Autograph Hunt 207\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.3 Laterna Magica: Paper and Interiors 215\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCHAPTER 4 The Inventory of Modernity 226\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.1 Typewriter Paper, Deckle Edges, and White Space 226\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.2 James Joyce, Newsprint, and Shears 236\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.3 William Gaddis, the Paperwork Crisis, and Punch Cards 242\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.4 Rainald Goetz, the Mystic Writing Pad, and the Smell of Paper 249\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEPILOGUE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Analog and the Digital 253\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNotes 265\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBibliography 274\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eImage Credits 292\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIndex of Names 293\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"John Wiley and Sons Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49404423045463,"sku":"9780745672533","price":48.75,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780745672533.jpg?v=1730486416","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/white-magic-9780745672533","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}