Preface: How Culture Works xi
Introduction: Inside the Chauvet Cave, 35,000 BCE xii
1. Queen Nefertiti and Her Faceless God 1
2. Plato Burns His Tragedy and Invents a History 23
3. King Ashoka Sends a Message to the Future 36
4. A South Asian Goddess in Pompeii 53
5. A Buddhist Pilgrim in Search of Ancient Traces 70
6. The Pillow Book and Some Perils of Cultural Diplomacy 87
7. When Baghdad Became a Storehouse of Wisdom 105
8. The Queen of Ethiopia Welcomes the Raiders of the Ark 123
9. One Christian Mystic and the Three Revivals of Europe 140
10. The Aztec Capital Faces Its European Enemies and Admirers 164
11. A Portuguese Sailor Writes a Global Epic 185
12. Enlightenment in Saint-Domingue and in a Parisian Salon 206
13. George Eliot Promotes the Science of the Past 227
14. A Japanese Wave Takes the World by Storm 246
15. The Drama of Nigerian Independence 266
Epilogue: Will There Be a Library in 2114 CE? 287
Acknowledgments 305
Notes 309
Index 337