Culture

'Eminently readable ... The book's great strength lies in its ability to swoop deftly and lightly between things that may be familiar to us in themselves, but which we might be tempted to separate out in our attempts to form a picture of the world.' -- Edward Wilson-Lee * The Times Literary Supplement *
'A breakneck, utterly captivating survey of threads of cultural transmission-how ideas, stories, and songs-survive, change, vanish, get borrowed, refined, coopted, and grafted through time ... I underlined sentences on every page.' -- Anthony Doerr
'Compellingly written' * Financial Times *
'A remarkable book.' -- Kwame Anthony Appiah
'Martin Puchner has exceptional and invaluable gifts: intellectual fearlessness, dazzling erudition, trenchancy tempered by breadth of mind, and a humanist's eye for minute evidence that illumines huge problems.' -- Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
'Well written, nuanced and light in style, spinning a series of historical narratives in an erudite and engaging way' -- Marguerite Johnson * The Conversation *
'Fearless and exhilaratingly erudite, Martin Puchner's panoramic tour of human culture across the millennia is a riveting page-turner.' -- Amy Chua
'A writer of genius' -- William Dalrymple
'Elegantly written and full of erudite lore, this vibrant history illuminates the inveterate human yearning for expression.' * Publishers Weekly *
'A thoughtful, generous vision of human creativity across centuries of culture.' * Kirkus *