Book cover of White Magic: The Age of Paper

Book description

Paper 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…


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Why read it?

1 author picked White Magic as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Müller takes up the story of the Kingdom of Paper by illustrating that the Kingdom was still firmly in place by 1932 when paper was omnipresent and indispensable in and for modern civilization. 

He focuses on paper as more than just a writing surface, especially on its physical, material form, as a product of civilization, something which does not occur naturally in the world but instead requires a technology to produce. This leads him into the great boom in Western paper mills and the realization that we are after all still living in what Marshall McLuhan called the “Gutenberg era”…

From John's list on the history of paper.

If you love White Magic...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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