Introduction Earthrise xi
Map And Timeline Of The Written World xxiv
Chapter 1 Alexander's Pillow Book 3
Chapter 2 King Of The Universe: Of Gilgamesh And Ashurbanipal 24
Chapter 3 Ezra And The Creation Of Holy Scripture 46
Chapter 4 Learning From The Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, And Jesus 62
Chapter 5 Murasaki And The Tale Of Genji: The First Great Novel In World History 98
Chatter 6 One Thousand And One Nights With Scheherazade 121
Chapter 7 Gutenberg, Luther, And The New Public Of Print 145
Chapter 8 The Popol VUH And Maya Culture: A Second, Independent Literary Tradition 171
Chapter 9 Don Quixote And The Pirates 193
Chapter 10 Benjamin Franklin: Media Entrepreneur In The Republic Of Letters 211
Chapter 11 World Literature: Goethe In Sicily 232
Chapter 12 Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao: Readers Of The Communist Manifesto, Unite! 252
Chapter 13 Akhmatova And Solzhenitsyn: Writing Against The Soviet State 273
Chapter 14 The Epic Of Sunjata And The Wordsmiths Of West Africa 290
Chapter 15 Postcolonial Literature: Derek Walcott, Poet Of The Caribbean 306
Chapter 16 From Hogwarts To India 326
Acknowledgments 339
Notes 341
Illustration Credits 389
Index 393
A Conversation With Martin Puchner 413