From the Book - First edition.
Preface: How culture works
Introduction: Inside the Chauvet Cave, 35,000 BCE
Queen Nefertiti and her faceless god
Plato burns his tragedy and invents a history
King Ashoka sends a message to the future
A south Asian goddess in Pompeii
A Buddhist pilgrim in search of ancient traces
The Pillow Book and some perils of cultural diplomacy
When Baghdad became a storehouse of wisdom
The Queen of Ethiopia welcomes the raiders of the ark
One Christian mystic and the three revivals of Europe
The Aztec capital faces its European enemies and admirers
A Portuguese sailor writes a global epic
Enlightenment in Saint-Domingue and in a Parisian salon
George Eliot promotes the science of the past
A Japanese wave takes the world by storm
The drama of Nigerian independence
Epilogue: Will there be a library in 2114 CE?
