A sweeping, richly detailed history that tells the fascinating story of the invention of paper in China two thousand years ago, its spread across Eurasia, and its role in the dawning of European modernity in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Comprehensively researched, vividly written, The Paper Trail traces the cultural, political, and religious revolutions that this now globally ubiquitous material set in motion when it was new to the world. Alexander Monro--who has lived in, traveled through, studied, and written about China for many years--takes us from paper's refinement in 2nd century A.D. China, where it was used to solidify social and political systems that continue to influence the country today . . . to its use in the dissemination of the religions of Buddhism and Manichaeism . . . to its adoption in the Islamic world where it embedded the Koran in popular culture . . . to its role (together with printing) in the Renaissance, the Reformation,...