Some technologies have a tremendous effect on life… paper is one.

Having read several of Kurlansky's books, in which history is distilled through unusual lenses, I was looking forward to Paper. But the author made so many mistakes and included so many poorly explained (perhaps he himself did not fully understand what he had read?) glosses about the development of language and related areas in just the beginning sections that I found myself questioning the veracity of not only the material he presents in this volume, but in his others as well. A disappointment.

Like other reviewers have noted, this Paper book covers a lot of writing as well as paper itself, but more important, it just doesn't seem careful with its research, unlike Salt.

After reading that Islam in the Middle Ages conquered land as far east (sic) as the Iberian peninsula and as far west (sic) as modern day Pakistan, and reading that a Japanese plot in World War II to have paper balloons deliver bombs over the west coast in retaliation for the Doolittle raid, but that it had been researched for more than a decade and wasn't tried until two years after the Doolittle raid, and that alcohol isn't mentioned in the Q'uran because alcohol probably wasn't known in the early days of Islam, I thought this book wasn't edited well, and I couldn't trust much I did (maybe?) learn. I mean, east/west is a simple mistake, and maybe there's a way of parsing the whole paper balloons/bombs narrative that would allow for military research to have been done since the early 30's and it took two years after the Doolittle raid to get the effort into action, and the Doolittle raid was the thing that pushed this odd project from just military research to 'we're going to do this even if it takes two more years,' and maybe he meant heavily distilled, or nearly pure, alcohol wasn't known ca. 600 CE, because wine is all over the bible, so known to the old world, but would you trust all that?

And that, of course, is just the stuff I noticed without looking into it. When he talks about Civil War photography and the hope that it would remove the romance of war, replacing it with the real as-it-happened carnage, I remembered that this book covers the fact that a lot of dead soldiers were moved and posed to make the photos more dramatic (or, say, romantic); moreover, some 'corpses' weren't even dead. Enough to make Kurlansky's point null and void? Dunno. But I don't trust it by any means because of the other stuff.

I guess I learned a bunch, but I don't know what it is, because I don't know which things are right and which aren't.

Finally, he seems bent on an overarching premise that technology doesn't change society - he says it's the other way around. For instance, paper didn't change the world, the changing world required and therefore created paper. I don't know why he was so invested in it - and not just with paper, but with all technology, and made it such a black-and-white proposition, but it was irksome. There have been desires to fly since time immemorial. It didn't happen until it did, and then powered flight changed society. Instant communication through the ether had been conceived centuries before radio, but radio changed society, not the other way 'round.

Not as interesting to me as Kurlansky’s other books, but still worth reading.

I owe my collection of fairly inexpensive readily available books to wasps. I HATE wasps. They terrify me. But, until the 1800s, paper was made from rags. Then the paper demand surpassed the availability of rags. Someone in the 1700s had noted that wasps' nests are made from a wood pulp and resemble paper. America had a massive amount of trees - boom! The modern paper industry was born.
This book was fascinating. I enjoy histories of very specific items and I love paper. This provided both a history of paper manufacturing and the reasons for the demand for paper. In many ways it was also a mini history of the world since paper has played a role in many momentous events.
One point the author made was that while we talk about how technology changes society, really society usually changes and creates a demand for new technology. I'm not sure I buy that, but it was interesting thinking events from that angle.
This book made me appreciate paper even more. It was crazy reading about the intensive work that used to go into it and still does in places like Japan where paper is still handmade for artists. It also made me like deckled edges even more - they mimic the look of handmade paper.
Oddly, while I was reading this, my husband read something about how recycling paper doesn't actually help the environment and this touches on that as well. The chemicals that are used to remove ink are bad for the environment and it takes a lot of energy. Making new paper is so efficient that many companies make more energy than they need and sell the energy to utility companies. Organic material is needed in landfills to help break other items down. Paper companies stick to their own tree farms now and except for China, don't cut down old growth anymore. Recycling does help provide material for things like cardboard and packaging material, but it's not good for making more paper.
I learned a ton from this and had a lot of fun reading it.

I had very high hopes for Paper, but Kurlansky's book never fulfilled them. The book could never make up its mind whether it was about the manufacturing of paper or what paper is used for. Kurlansky fashions himself an expert on the history of technology, but seems to sell Asia short.

This is the second book I've read on the history of paper. I read Ian Sansom's book on it in 2013. That wasn't all that interesting either. I think I'm officially retired from the history of paper reading department.

A bit more linear and less vivid than Salt or Cod, but as exhaustive and interesting as always.

(also, boy howdy does he ever have it out for technological determinism all of a sudden, to the point where you could play a drinking game to his attacks on it. Did I miss that earlier?)

Too long.