Boston Athenæum

May 18, 2016 at the Boston Athenæum. Paper is one of the simplest and most essential forms of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art. It has created civilizations, fostered revolutions, and stabilized regimes. Consider, for example, history’s greatest press run, which produced 6.5 billion copies of Máo zhuxí yulu Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Zedong), or the fact that Leonardo da Vinci left behind only 15 paintings but 4,000 works on paper. Now, on the cusp of “going paperless” – and amid rampant speculation about the effects of a digitally dependent society – we’ve come to a world-historic juncture and must examine what paper means to civilization. By tracing paper’s evolution, Mark Kurlansky challenges common assumptions about technology’s influence, affirming that paper is here to stay.