A History of Paper

choi

A history of paper | Happy Find; A cheap, portable, printable invention. Economist, June 7, 2014
www.economist.com/news/books-and ... nvention-happy-find
(book review on Alexander Monro, The Paper Trail: An Unexpected History of the World’s Greatest Invention. Allen Lane

Quote:

“PAPER is said to have been invented in 105AD by a eunuch named Cai Lun, a civil servant in Luoyang, China. * * * Mr Monro’s focus is China * * * By the fourth century AD, China was a paper culture

“Cai’s manufacturing process began its spread westward after the Battle of Talas in 751, when the Chinese army was beaten by Arabs from the Abbasid caliphate. Chinese prisoners taught Arabs the technique for making paper, and by 795 there was a paper mill in Baghdad. By the ninth century the Koran was routinely copied on paper, not parchment.

“The great acceleration in Europe began with the invention of movable-type printing by Gutenberg in 1439 * * * Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible was the first bestseller. The concept of the Rights of Man was spread through books

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) Nicholas A Basbanes, On Paper; The everything of its two-thousand-year history. Alfred A Knopf, 2013
was a bestseller. But I have not been able to find a good review.
(c) Monro and Munroe are variant spellings of Scottish surname Monroe.
(d) Battle of Talas
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas
(The Battle of Talas marked the end of the Tang Dynasty's western expansion of their territory, this representing the furthest point of territorial expansion to the west by the Tang, or any prior or subsequent Chinese dynasties)

(e) Martin Luther (1483-1546): "His translation of the Bible into the vernacular (instead of Latin) made it more accessible [and] fostered the development of a standard version of the German language * * * published his German translation of the New Testament in 1522, and * * * the translation of the Old Testament in 1534 [though] [o]thers had translated the Bible into German * * * used the variant of German spoken at the Saxon chancellery, intelligible to both northern and southern Germans.”  Wikipedia
(i) For Saxon chancellery, see Sächsische Staatskanzlei
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sächsische_Staatskanzlei
(lothe office building for the head (Minister-President, a literal translation of “Ministerpräsident” in German) of the executive branch of Free State of Saxony.
(ii) Dresden
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden
(capital city of the Free State of Saxony; Its name etymologically derives from Old Sorbian Drežďany, meaning people of the forest
(iii) Sorbs
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbs
(are a Western Slavic people; arrived [in Free State of Saxony, say] in the 6th century [to the present])
(iv) Saxony
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxony
(Free State of Saxony; "The area of the modern state of Saxony should not be confused with Old Saxony, the area inhabited by Saxons. Old Saxony corresponds approximately to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt")
(v) Saxons
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons
(most of whom settled in large parts of Great Britain [with Angles]; Some Saxons remained in Germany [who, after subjugation by Charlemagne [died 814] were incorporated into a new entity called Duchy of Saxony (804-1296)];  section 1 Etymology)
(vi) To make the long story short, Duchy of Saxony [qv--just for its map] included both Old Saxony and the present-day Free State of Saxony. The latter became Electorate of Saxony (1356-1806 and then Kingdom of Saxony (1806-1918). (In 1806 Holy Roman Empire dissolved and its--Electorate’s--head elevated it to Kingdom of Saxony. See Saxons
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons
(This region [the present-day Free State of Saxony] subsequently [having been incorporated into Duchy of Saxony] acquired the name Saxony through political circumstances)

(f) “Rights of Man”
(i) Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen
(1789; Paris; section 1 History)
(ii) Rights of Man
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_Man
(1791; a book by Thomas Paine; it defends the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's attack in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790))

choi

correction and additions:

--------------------
(i) For Saxon chancellery, see Sächsische Staatskanzlei
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sächsische_Staatskanzlei
(located in Dresden)
is the office building for the head (Minister-President, a literal translation of “Ministerpräsident” in German) of the executive branch of Free State of Saxony.

* German English dictionary
(A) sächsische (adj): "inflected form of sächsisch"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sächsische
(B) sächsisch (adj; from Sachse +‎ -isch): "Saxon (of Saxons, Saxony or Saxon language)"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sächsisch
(C) Staatskanzlei (noun feminine): "state chancellery"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Staatskanzlei
(D) staat (noun masculine): “nation, country”
(E) kanzlei (noun feminine): “1a: office, b: chambers [of a judge]; 2 (history, politics) chancellery”
www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/german-english/kanzlei