The Development of Ink, Paper & Printing in Asia - Softcover

Laufer, Berthold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9745241105 ISBN 13: 9789745241107

Publisher: Orchid Press, 2019

Synopsis

·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.

About this title

About the Author:

Berthold Laufer (1874-1934) was among the most erudite of early 20th century Western scholars of Asian culture. He was the primary contributor to the great collection of anthropological material now preserved at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, a collection he curated for some 26 years. Fluent in many Asian languages, and leader of four major exploratory expeditions to Asia, he was the author of over 200 anthropological studies, books and papers.

Review:

(Laufer was) "the greatest in his field then, and one that has had few equals since." Bennet Bronson, Curators. Collections and Contexts: Anthropology at the Field Museum, 1893-2002, Fieldiana - Anthropology, New Series, No. 36, September 2003.

About this edition

• Publisher: Orchid Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 9745241105
• ISBN 13: 9789745241107
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 120