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The Development of Ink, Paper & Printing in Asia
•Essays and illustrations are drawn from sources long out of print and now difficult to obtain
•Concise and highly readable account of an important and complex subject
•A must read for all with an interest in Asian culture and its contributions to human progress
Essays on the origins of ink, paper and printing in Asia, tracing the early development of these technologies in China, Korea and Japan, and their later migration westward. The author, Berhold Laufer correctly states that, without these developments, "there would have been no adequate record of the past, no progress, no science." Laufer draws on primary sources and linguistic clues to reconstruct not only the evolution of these developments, but also the materials and methods which the ancients used, the folklore that developed around ink and printing, and how these technologies eventually reached the West, many centuries after their origin. Along the way we learn how Chinese and other east Asians recorded information prior to the invention of printing, how the Buddhist sangha were the first users of early printing, how ink was employed as a tribute to rulers and the gods, that ink was used for both medicinal and punitive purposes and much more. A must read for all with an interest in Asian culture and its contributions to human progress.
•Concise and highly readable account of an important and complex subject
•A must read for all with an interest in Asian culture and its contributions to human progress
Essays on the origins of ink, paper and printing in Asia, tracing the early development of these technologies in China, Korea and Japan, and their later migration westward. The author, Berhold Laufer correctly states that, without these developments, "there would have been no adequate record of the past, no progress, no science." Laufer draws on primary sources and linguistic clues to reconstruct not only the evolution of these developments, but also the materials and methods which the ancients used, the folklore that developed around ink and printing, and how these technologies eventually reached the West, many centuries after their origin. Along the way we learn how Chinese and other east Asians recorded information prior to the invention of printing, how the Buddhist sangha were the first users of early printing, how ink was employed as a tribute to rulers and the gods, that ink was used for both medicinal and punitive purposes and much more. A must read for all with an interest in Asian culture and its contributions to human progress.
120 pages, Paperback
Published August 31, 2019
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