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Культура. Оповідь про нас, від наскельного живопису до музики кейпопу
Де пролягає межа між запозиченням та культурною апропріацією та як уникнути останньої? Над цим питанням міркує професор Мартін Пухнер із Гарвардського університету, розглядаючи культурні взаємовпливи, що виникають внаслідок контактів різних народів і держав. Автор переповідає історію культури крізь призму збереження, втрати й відновлення культурних артефактів, особливу увагу приділяючи місцям та інституціям, повʼязаним із продукуванням сенсів: від печери Шове до єгипетських пірамід і грецьких театрів, буддистських і християнських монастирів, острівного міста Теночтітлана, італійських кабінетів студіоло та паризьких салонів, а також музеїв.
400 pages, Paperback
First published February 7, 2023
171 people are currently reading
3187 people want to read
About the author
Martin Puchner
57 books120 followersMartin Puchner is a literary critic and philosopher. He studied at Konstanz University, the University of Bologna, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, before receiving his Ph.D. at Harvard University. Until 2009 he held the H. Gordon Garbedian Chair at Columbia University, where he also served as co-chair of the Theater Ph.D. program. He now holds the Byron and Anita Wien Chair of Drama and of English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He is the founding director of the Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research at Harvard University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 133 reviews
July 15, 2025
I don't like liars. If you're going to advertise K-pop in the title, have more than two pages on the subject. Also, don't be so condescending about it. Sorry not sorry that it's popular. The rest is passable. It's nothing you won't know if you paid attention in world history.
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company
October 18, 2022
It’s not always a pretty story, and shouldn’t be presented as such, but it’s the only one we’ve got: the history of humans as a culture-producing species. It’s the story of us.
In Culture: The Story of Us, literary critic and Harvard professor of Drama, English, and Comparative Literature Martin Puchner takes us on a tour through time and space to discover the strategies that humans have developed to understand our world: both through STEM-type discovery and mastery of the natural world (our know-how; only briefly referenced here) and our efforts at meaning-making (our know-why; the focus of this book). Throughout this overview of thousands of years of humanity’s quest for knowledge and meaning, Puchner seems to be stressing two main points: that the Humanities as an area of study are equally as important to improving the human experience as are the “hard” sciences; and that humans have always borrowed from and built on the culture of other communities — our current focus on gatekeeping against “cultural appropriation” is in direct opposition to the ways in which culture has always been diffused and preserved. That last point might be controversial — and as Puchner returns to it many times, it would seem that he understands he has a hard case to make — but through many, many examples (from the Chauvet cave paintings, to Pompeiian mosaics, to Aztec pictograms) he proves that knowledge can be literally carved in stone for future generations, but if a particular culture doesn’t survive into that future (and most will not), there will be no one around who can decipher what remains; culture needs to be adopted and adapted and carried forward in order to meaningfully survive. From the fascinating details to the overall message, I appreciated everything that I learned from this read. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
All creators put their trust in the future by trusting that the future will not destroy their works despite the differences in value they know will inevitably arise. Culture: The Story of Us aims to offer its readers the breathtaking variety of cultural works that we as a species have wrought, in the hope that we will carry our shared human inheritance into the next generation, and beyond.
It feels appropriate that Puchner starts his overview with the Chauvet cave paintings: we humans seem to have always hearkened to the distant past in an effort to make meaning of our present. It is interesting to consider why, even today, a “Classical Education” includes learning Latin and Ancient Greek in order to read the “epics” in the original; honestly: why? Even more interesting is noting, in this context, that Plato wanted to give his Athens an even more ancient past, so he wrote Timaeus (in which an Egyptian priest tells the story of Athens once joining Egypt in its war against Atlantis). Along this line, we have Virgil writing The Aeneid (linking the founding of Rome to a refugee from the Trojan War); Nebure Id Ishaq’s Kebra Nagast (a 14th century Ethiopian work that tells the story of the Queen of Sheba carrying the Ark of the Covenant out of Jerusalem); and Louis de Camões’ 16th century The Lusiads (a heroic history of Portuguese seafaring, written in the style of a Greek epic). And in contrast to this history of people trying to link themselves to the so-called cultural “pinnacles” of ancient times, Puchner tells the story of Wole Soyinka’s 20th century masterpiece of Nigerian theatre, Death and the King’s Horseman (based on actual events from Nigeria’s colonial past that involved a conflict between Nigerian and British cultures) and I appreciated how Puchner describes Soyinka’s use of Western theatrical forms, overlaid with traditional Yoruba storytelling devices, and how by not preferring one form over the other (neither is considered a pinnacle or primitive), Soyinka achieves a “deep investigation into ritual, arguably humanity’s oldest form of meaning-making”.
In evaluating culture, we tend to overemphasize originality: when and where something was first invented. Claims of origin are often used to prop up dubious claims of superiority and ownership. Such claims conveniently forget that everything comes from somewhere, is dug up, borrowed, moved, purchased, stolen, recorded, copied, and often misunderstood. What matters much more than where something originally comes from is what we do with it. Culture is a huge recycling project, and we are simply the intermediaries that preserve its vestiges for yet another use. Nobody owns culture; we simply pass it down to the next generation.
In addition to stories of culture being borrowed across time are those of culture being carried across space. I enjoyed the story of the Buddhist monk, Xuanzang, who travelled to India in the 7th century in search of original source Buddhist writings and artefacts (and it was interesting to consider the transfer of Buddhism eastward as Hinduism regained its foothold in India). Similarly, it was interesting to learn of the 9th century Japanese Buddhist monk, Ennin, who travelled to China as part of an official diplomatic mission to bring back cultural objects and new knowledge (and to witness Japan becoming a primary seat of Buddhist practise as Confucianism regained its foothold in China). Going forward in time to the 19th century, it was fascinating to learn that wood-block printing was original to China but adopted by artists in Japan’s “floating world” (a place marked by pleasure, commerce, and hedonism), and that the most popular print to come out of this era was Hokusai’s The Great Wave in 1830; as it turns out, this most recognisable of Japanese artworks has very little in common with traditional Japanese art. (Puchner traces this commercialisation of borrowed culture in the East to modern times with the rise of K-pop in our own day, a rise that has “been accompanied by an anti-Korean backlash as well as by claims that it isn’t Korean at all.”)
Cultures thrive on the ready availability of different forms of expression and meaning-making, on possibilities and experiments, and to the extent that cultural contact increases those options, it stimulates cultural production and development. Those invested in purity, by contrast, tend to shut down alternatives, limit possibilities, and police experiments in cultural fusion. By doing so, they impoverish themselves while condoning or encouraging the neglect and destruction of those aspects of the past that do not conform to their own, narrow standards.
There are many more stories of cultural borrowing, adoption, and adaptation throughout the ages than it would be possible to put in a review, and I can only end by saying that I was fascinated by all of it. This is the story of all of us, and it’s a story we all ought to know and carry forward.
March 23, 2023
I thought this was going to be a fun, history of the zeitgeist sort of read for history buffs who love contextual examinations of culture, but unfortunately it reads more like a freshman survey course in world civilizations.
Which would be fine, except that’s not what the book is purporting to aim for. If you have very little knowledge of world history or are looking for a broad-stroke brush-up on the topic, this should suffice. But if you’re looking for what this book claimed to offer, you’re going to be disappointed.
While accurate and compellingly worded, it just isn’t enough for the audience it purports to target. I really
don’t need someone to explain the purpose of the Rosetta Stone to me, y’know? And I doubt most people who would pick up a book like this do either. I learned more about the San Domingue revolts from HG Parry’s historical fantasy novels than I did from this. And these topics, as well as the rest that were covered here, are presented merely in the traditional method used in a world history survey, rather than as nuanced cultural signifiers, no matter how many times the author tries to tell us otherwise in the text.
There is so much good stuff out there on cultural history. Unless you’re very short on background in world history, skip this and go for one of the many other books out there that actually achieves what this book failed in its attempt to do.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
Which would be fine, except that’s not what the book is purporting to aim for. If you have very little knowledge of world history or are looking for a broad-stroke brush-up on the topic, this should suffice. But if you’re looking for what this book claimed to offer, you’re going to be disappointed.
While accurate and compellingly worded, it just isn’t enough for the audience it purports to target. I really
don’t need someone to explain the purpose of the Rosetta Stone to me, y’know? And I doubt most people who would pick up a book like this do either. I learned more about the San Domingue revolts from HG Parry’s historical fantasy novels than I did from this. And these topics, as well as the rest that were covered here, are presented merely in the traditional method used in a world history survey, rather than as nuanced cultural signifiers, no matter how many times the author tries to tell us otherwise in the text.
There is so much good stuff out there on cultural history. Unless you’re very short on background in world history, skip this and go for one of the many other books out there that actually achieves what this book failed in its attempt to do.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
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July 2, 2023DNF
O livro é apresentado como "A New World History" (na edição britânica), mas não foi isso que senti. Puchner usa argumentos, usados por outros antes, de que vários historiadores têm afirmado a cultura como pertença de países e geografias, com que não concordo. O facto de Jared Diamond construir uma visão do mundo a partir da Geografia, não quer dizer que ele defenda que a cultura de cada uma dessas zonas era estanque. Não digo que não tenham existido historiadores, ao longo da História, a usar dessa abordagem, tentando justificar que a Antiga Grécia, Roma, a Europa, etc. eram lugares especiais. Mas em essência, e na atualidade, é impossível olhar à História fechados numa redoma desse tipo.
Ou seja, Puchner defende aqui que a Cultura é fruto da fusão e transmissão de informação entre diferentes culturas. Ora, isso é a visão atual do mundo do conhecimento visto pelas Ciências Cognitivas. Evoluímos pelo encontro com a diferença. Não é por acaso que a União Europeia investe milhões na preservação das línguas e dialetos do continente Europeu, porque sabemos que quanto mais diversos formos mais ricos culturalmente seremos.
Por isso, a questão é por demais evidente: era preciso Puchner escrever um livro sobre isto em 2023? O que teria sido de Roma sem todo a cultura helénica? O que teria sido do helenismo sem a Babilónia? E o que teria sido do Renascimento Italiano sem a cultura helénica preservada pelas universidades do norte de África e retraduzidas para latim em Toledo? E do renascimento português sem o Brasil, África, Goa ou Japão? Assim, fazer um livro em que se conta um conjunto de histórias superficiais ao longo dos últimos milénios para suportar essa ideia parece-me uma verdadeira perda de tempo. É um livro que não acrescenta nada ao que já sabemos.
Percebo que Puchner não escreveu este livro para interessados em História, ou Cultura, menos ainda em Ciência, mas para quem tende a ignorar tudo isso, daí o piscar de olhos à K-Pop na edição americana. Puchner quer demonstrar que nem a direita tem razão em falar de singularidade cultural de nações, nem a esquerda tem razão em querer proibir a apropriação cultural. Mas quem precisaria de ler o livro para poder compreender o teor dessa mesnagem não o vai ler, por isso acaba por, em minha opinião, ser uma missão votada ao fracasso.
O livro é apresentado como "A New World History" (na edição britânica), mas não foi isso que senti. Puchner usa argumentos, usados por outros antes, de que vários historiadores têm afirmado a cultura como pertença de países e geografias, com que não concordo. O facto de Jared Diamond construir uma visão do mundo a partir da Geografia, não quer dizer que ele defenda que a cultura de cada uma dessas zonas era estanque. Não digo que não tenham existido historiadores, ao longo da História, a usar dessa abordagem, tentando justificar que a Antiga Grécia, Roma, a Europa, etc. eram lugares especiais. Mas em essência, e na atualidade, é impossível olhar à História fechados numa redoma desse tipo.
Ou seja, Puchner defende aqui que a Cultura é fruto da fusão e transmissão de informação entre diferentes culturas. Ora, isso é a visão atual do mundo do conhecimento visto pelas Ciências Cognitivas. Evoluímos pelo encontro com a diferença. Não é por acaso que a União Europeia investe milhões na preservação das línguas e dialetos do continente Europeu, porque sabemos que quanto mais diversos formos mais ricos culturalmente seremos.
Por isso, a questão é por demais evidente: era preciso Puchner escrever um livro sobre isto em 2023? O que teria sido de Roma sem todo a cultura helénica? O que teria sido do helenismo sem a Babilónia? E o que teria sido do Renascimento Italiano sem a cultura helénica preservada pelas universidades do norte de África e retraduzidas para latim em Toledo? E do renascimento português sem o Brasil, África, Goa ou Japão? Assim, fazer um livro em que se conta um conjunto de histórias superficiais ao longo dos últimos milénios para suportar essa ideia parece-me uma verdadeira perda de tempo. É um livro que não acrescenta nada ao que já sabemos.
Percebo que Puchner não escreveu este livro para interessados em História, ou Cultura, menos ainda em Ciência, mas para quem tende a ignorar tudo isso, daí o piscar de olhos à K-Pop na edição americana. Puchner quer demonstrar que nem a direita tem razão em falar de singularidade cultural de nações, nem a esquerda tem razão em querer proibir a apropriação cultural. Mas quem precisaria de ler o livro para poder compreender o teor dessa mesnagem não o vai ler, por isso acaba por, em minha opinião, ser uma missão votada ao fracasso.
January 19, 2023
Culture, Puchner says, is a broken chain that humans repair every generation. While destruction and cultural development go hand in hand, this does not preclude the fact that humans are culture-producing animals who have, for millennia, relied on the availability of new forms of expression and meaning-making to develop worldviews. We confront what came before us so that we can understand it and adapt it for our own purposes.
He explores the popular notion that culture belongs to the people born into it. In this view, national traditions, customs, and arts are seen as a form of property that is off-limits to outsiders. Cultural appropriation is viewed as violative. He will argue that this view impoverishes and does not recognize how culture actually works. His view is supported by an extensive world tour itinerary beginning in prehistory. Culture does not sprout from the ground fresh and unique, unadulterated by those who came before or encounters with other cultures where forms and ideas are borrowed and articulated in a new way. Puchner’s argument, backed by a sweeping review of historical cultural sharing, is both enlightening and reassuring. Reflecting on culture as a beautiful layering of others gives one a sense of thrilling connectedness in a world that is fractured, one where mine might be bettered thought of as ours.
He explores the popular notion that culture belongs to the people born into it. In this view, national traditions, customs, and arts are seen as a form of property that is off-limits to outsiders. Cultural appropriation is viewed as violative. He will argue that this view impoverishes and does not recognize how culture actually works. His view is supported by an extensive world tour itinerary beginning in prehistory. Culture does not sprout from the ground fresh and unique, unadulterated by those who came before or encounters with other cultures where forms and ideas are borrowed and articulated in a new way. Puchner’s argument, backed by a sweeping review of historical cultural sharing, is both enlightening and reassuring. Reflecting on culture as a beautiful layering of others gives one a sense of thrilling connectedness in a world that is fractured, one where mine might be bettered thought of as ours.
May 13, 2023
"Culture is, at best, a broken chain that we keep repairing in every generation." - Martin Puchner
Eduardo Galeano had elucidated it once and for all: there was never a golden age, for we are all half garbage - half marble. And yet, across the world, we find allusions to—almost nostalgically—a golden past to which groups are longing to return; a past whose remnants are fragmented at best and parts of whose validity have been both proven and disproven.
There is a growing concern and ensuing debates around how artificial intelligence would define our future. What, however, seems to be a concern overlooked is how it is going to define our past. From the conquistadors who destroyed the mesoamerican history by burning libraries to Joseph Goebbels using radio and pamphlets to alienate Jewish culture from the mainstream to Russia using a televised concocted history to justify a war and to our friends and neighbours finding ethnocentric reasons to feel proud on social media, technology has served to distort history and change the meaning of culture to suit the ruling class since time immemorial. What's coming next should only scare those who have been able to save themselves from the rise and rise of technology and the perpetual connectivity it provides.
What we perceive as culture is, most often, an unintended by-product of violent exchanges among peoples. To try to wipe out a violent memory is possible but delusional: an act of first accepting and then denying one's own identity. That's why the problem with this book is that those who choose to read it would feel both enlightened and sunken in despair and those who should read it, would never choose to do so.
Eduardo Galeano had elucidated it once and for all: there was never a golden age, for we are all half garbage - half marble. And yet, across the world, we find allusions to—almost nostalgically—a golden past to which groups are longing to return; a past whose remnants are fragmented at best and parts of whose validity have been both proven and disproven.
There is a growing concern and ensuing debates around how artificial intelligence would define our future. What, however, seems to be a concern overlooked is how it is going to define our past. From the conquistadors who destroyed the mesoamerican history by burning libraries to Joseph Goebbels using radio and pamphlets to alienate Jewish culture from the mainstream to Russia using a televised concocted history to justify a war and to our friends and neighbours finding ethnocentric reasons to feel proud on social media, technology has served to distort history and change the meaning of culture to suit the ruling class since time immemorial. What's coming next should only scare those who have been able to save themselves from the rise and rise of technology and the perpetual connectivity it provides.
What we perceive as culture is, most often, an unintended by-product of violent exchanges among peoples. To try to wipe out a violent memory is possible but delusional: an act of first accepting and then denying one's own identity. That's why the problem with this book is that those who choose to read it would feel both enlightened and sunken in despair and those who should read it, would never choose to do so.
April 13, 2023
A curious book and cool approach but felt it missed a mark for me. The book is based in the idea that culture is a mixture of forgetting, destruction, revival and reinterpretation. Each chapter is a story about culture from one of these perspectives, moving from past to present. But there was little analysis of the science of culture so it felt superficial to me. Interesting stories though and learned some cool history.
Want to read
January 29, 2023WSJ's positive review:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/culture-...
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
"For Mr. Puchner, “culture thrives on syncretism, not on purity, on borrowing cultural forms rather than locking them away.” It needs to mix and match because its rocky road through time is strewn with blockages and breakages: “interruptions and recoveries all the way back.” As he gently upbraids the “purists and puritans” who shut creativity in local boxes, Mr. Puchner eschews the rhetoric of “cultural appropriation.” Although “everything comes from somewhere,” exclusive claims of origin—of arts or ideas—often mask a bid for “superiority and ownership.” Rather, culture operates as a “huge recycling project,” as messy as that metaphor implies."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/culture-...
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
"For Mr. Puchner, “culture thrives on syncretism, not on purity, on borrowing cultural forms rather than locking them away.” It needs to mix and match because its rocky road through time is strewn with blockages and breakages: “interruptions and recoveries all the way back.” As he gently upbraids the “purists and puritans” who shut creativity in local boxes, Mr. Puchner eschews the rhetoric of “cultural appropriation.” Although “everything comes from somewhere,” exclusive claims of origin—of arts or ideas—often mask a bid for “superiority and ownership.” Rather, culture operates as a “huge recycling project,” as messy as that metaphor implies."
August 25, 2023
It was super insightful to read about various historical events, and how it's shaped "culture". The style of writing was simple and not complex, which made it easy to read, and I didn't have to go back and forth looking up history and cultural facts.
The book traces thousands of years of history and shows how humans have created culture to make sense of the world around them. And how each country's culture has influenced others - and how culture has morphed along with time. He argues the importance of learning humanities and accepting culture the way it is.
The book traces thousands of years of history and shows how humans have created culture to make sense of the world around them. And how each country's culture has influenced others - and how culture has morphed along with time. He argues the importance of learning humanities and accepting culture the way it is.
Read
June 4, 2023I did not finish this book. The title is very misleading. There is no kpop - it does not even get to the twentieth century.
April 30, 2023
A fascinating look at the ways culture is always informed by what came before it, and the ways ideas pollinate and spread across time and space. I don’t know if I always bought Puchner’s arguments - so much of it is in support of a thesis that cultures cannot be owned or appropriated that I think it has a pretty implicit bias, in response to our current dialogue around these ideas - but I undeniably had fun reading this, and I loved the way it skipped across most of the globe and brought to light stories I had never heard of before. In its finer moments, it’s a stirring call to nurture and champion art and the people who create it, as well as a call for humility and curiosity in engaging in cultures not your own. A book that rewards curiosity.
May 6, 2024
This book by Martin Puchner is fabulous. I don't know what other people think of the book, but it's fine.
Culture flows. These days, nationalism has taken root worldwide and spread its tentacles everywhere. However, Europe is the birthplace of nationalistic ideas that have spread worldwide. This spread proves Martin Puchner's thesis that culture flows from one place to another.
The book is brilliant, and the book's material must give us all reason to pause, think, and reconsider all our previous hypotheses about our nations.
The book is a tribute to humanity and proves that if we are open to learning from others, we enrich ourselves. No culture is static. Cultures are like rivers.
Culture flows. These days, nationalism has taken root worldwide and spread its tentacles everywhere. However, Europe is the birthplace of nationalistic ideas that have spread worldwide. This spread proves Martin Puchner's thesis that culture flows from one place to another.
The book is brilliant, and the book's material must give us all reason to pause, think, and reconsider all our previous hypotheses about our nations.
The book is a tribute to humanity and proves that if we are open to learning from others, we enrich ourselves. No culture is static. Cultures are like rivers.
May 5, 2024
I love that this mentions culture from different parts of the world and not just western! It’s interesting and thought-provoking with a consistently good writing style. Unfortunately, I expected it to delve more into cultural appropriation, but it didn’t all that much. Still, it’s a read I recommend!
July 26, 2024
Martin Puccner presents a macro view of civilization through map points and time jumps. He starts in modern times in the Chauvet Cave in Southern France. He moves through a variety of historical/ architectural tales to give us pinhole views of time at large.
This approach allows the reader to get a distant picture of how culture is transmitted. Puchner, as always, is good at presenting history for the casual reader. I enjoyed reading these historical vignettes, several of which I was unfamiliar.
November 4, 2025
Та нормальна, добра книга для тих, хто починає знайомство з історією культур. Звісно є питання і зауваги щодо коректності інтерпретацій минулого, але стиль таки популярний і певну свободу у тексті автору можна пробачити.
August 21, 2023
This book aims to show how human culture is transmitted and preserved . The concentration is on culture that was shared or transmitted , voluntarily and otherwise . This means that it’s not a full story as it omits cultures that were never transmitted or shared but the scoop is still pleasingly worldwide and there’s a decent sense of chronology.
Culture here is defined as the know-why, the making of meaning, as opposed to the know-how of practical survival and life development. This thus includes religion, science, literature , art and written law . The book’s thesis is that cultural sharing has always developed and broadened s and therefore inherently good, even when, as in imperial contexts, it is done under dubious circumstances. There is therefore here no room for concepts of cultural appropriation. This thesis will be controversial, though Puchner notes it is shared by such figures as the venerable African writer Wole Soyinka .
So the book journeys from the ancient worlds to now . Alongside the familiar stops of Mesopotamia, Greece , Rome, Egypt, India and China are South America etc . Many less familiar names - I enjoyed learning about Ashoka ( not Star Wars but an ancient oriental ruler ).
A fun little anecdote is that star treks where no man has gone before cane from ancient explorers. Also interesting is George Eliot’s relationship with new German historicist thinking that looked at the past in new contextual ways . In. Middle March Casabon’s doomed quest to find a universal key cones as social change pushes forward and as, in the real world, A genuine key to ancient languages is found in the Rosetta Stone . These are examples but all the snapshots are fascinating . Finial chapters show Japanese influences on modernism and Nigerian independence , with its use of theatre . It’s adaption of Greek tragedy to African concepts showed cultural synthesis . The book shows how we have had to overcome colonial and class prejudice to define culture. Then book doesn’t quite manage to be a cogent history but it covers important ground .
Culture here is defined as the know-why, the making of meaning, as opposed to the know-how of practical survival and life development. This thus includes religion, science, literature , art and written law . The book’s thesis is that cultural sharing has always developed and broadened s and therefore inherently good, even when, as in imperial contexts, it is done under dubious circumstances. There is therefore here no room for concepts of cultural appropriation. This thesis will be controversial, though Puchner notes it is shared by such figures as the venerable African writer Wole Soyinka .
So the book journeys from the ancient worlds to now . Alongside the familiar stops of Mesopotamia, Greece , Rome, Egypt, India and China are South America etc . Many less familiar names - I enjoyed learning about Ashoka ( not Star Wars but an ancient oriental ruler ).
A fun little anecdote is that star treks where no man has gone before cane from ancient explorers. Also interesting is George Eliot’s relationship with new German historicist thinking that looked at the past in new contextual ways . In. Middle March Casabon’s doomed quest to find a universal key cones as social change pushes forward and as, in the real world, A genuine key to ancient languages is found in the Rosetta Stone . These are examples but all the snapshots are fascinating . Finial chapters show Japanese influences on modernism and Nigerian independence , with its use of theatre . It’s adaption of Greek tragedy to African concepts showed cultural synthesis . The book shows how we have had to overcome colonial and class prejudice to define culture. Then book doesn’t quite manage to be a cogent history but it covers important ground .
August 31, 2023
This book deftly explained some really interesting history from around the world. However, it’s thesis statement was disappointing and half-formed. It’s irresponsible to advocate for sharing culture without discussing how harmful it can be, or without giving due time to the oppression appropriation can uphold.
I enjoyed the epilogue more than I expected to. However, I would be much more interested in this book’s thesis if it had instead focused on opposition to censorship as a means of preserving culture.
I enjoyed the epilogue more than I expected to. However, I would be much more interested in this book’s thesis if it had instead focused on opposition to censorship as a means of preserving culture.
April 15, 2023
Now this is my kind of book! A story of human culture developing through innate genius, the sharing of ideas, the stealing of concepts, the inter-connectedness of a rapidly expanding world. For good and for ill, this is a fantastic look at the grand scheme behind human civilization, and has given me ample new ideas to use in my own history classes. Bravo!
August 18, 2024
I liked Puchnar's Writen World better. But it has its interesting bit. One thing is his argument that Culture has become commodified in this capitalist world and is kind of like Polanyi's fictitious commodity.
He argues cultural appropriation only makes sense in the context of the capitalist commodified concept of culture.
Plato admired Egyptian Culture as something ancient, much like we admire Greek. He invented the war with Atlantis to create Greek collective myth. Much like Modi or Trump or others do when they try to create or galvanize a country.
Did not know Vedas was originally transmitted orally much like Greek Homeric poems. In the case of Vedas, initiate had to memorize it verbatim and even be able to recite backward. Similarly, Confucian classics have also remained stable over thousands of years.
Geneology of Jesus is a similar trope in history to showcase divinity. Virgil, a roman, said Rome was made by Trojan Aeneas connecting him rome to greek Homer. Persian Book of Kings claims Alexander was son a Persian Princess, calling him Iskandar.
He also talks about how Ibn Sina's translation of Ancient Greek text in Baghdad was pivotal in the Renaissance project in Europe
Finally, Ethiopian Kebra Nagast connects theft of Noah's ark and descendant of King Solomon or Queen of Sheba and so shifting center from Jerusalem to Aksum This is the root of the Rastafarian religion.
He argues cultural appropriation only makes sense in the context of the capitalist commodified concept of culture.
Plato admired Egyptian Culture as something ancient, much like we admire Greek. He invented the war with Atlantis to create Greek collective myth. Much like Modi or Trump or others do when they try to create or galvanize a country.
Did not know Vedas was originally transmitted orally much like Greek Homeric poems. In the case of Vedas, initiate had to memorize it verbatim and even be able to recite backward. Similarly, Confucian classics have also remained stable over thousands of years.
Geneology of Jesus is a similar trope in history to showcase divinity. Virgil, a roman, said Rome was made by Trojan Aeneas connecting him rome to greek Homer. Persian Book of Kings claims Alexander was son a Persian Princess, calling him Iskandar.
He also talks about how Ibn Sina's translation of Ancient Greek text in Baghdad was pivotal in the Renaissance project in Europe
Finally, Ethiopian Kebra Nagast connects theft of Noah's ark and descendant of King Solomon or Queen of Sheba and so shifting center from Jerusalem to Aksum This is the root of the Rastafarian religion.
October 26, 2024
absurdo!! genial!! mais um grande acerto do autor numa obra abrangente, acessível e deliciosa de ler. navegando por períodos e localidades históricas com um domínio da temática do livro tão seguro, Martin Puchner mostra como se dá a criação e a transmissão de práticas e crenças culturais ao longo da história humana.
desde as pinturas rupestres, passando por momentos e processos como os "renascimentos" culturais europeus, a jornada do budismo ao leste asiático e a antropofagia das culturas nacionais pós-coloniais, o autor explora muito bem como essa transmissão de ideias e legados se propaga através do tempo e do espaço. mudanças não surgem do absoluto nada, mas são resultado de processos históricos complexos e interligados que podem ser retraçados (ou não) para uma melhor compreensão de como chegamos aonde estamos.
simplesmente fascinante, a escrita é muito agradável e a linha de raciocínio é muito clara, além de trazer informações relevantes e vastas. a abrangência geográfica e histórica continua sendo um ponto alto das obras do autor q li, sempre preocupado em explorar diversas regiões do mundo em diferentes tempos de modo a nos dar uma visão completa da história humana. tomara q o próximo dele não demore!!
desde as pinturas rupestres, passando por momentos e processos como os "renascimentos" culturais europeus, a jornada do budismo ao leste asiático e a antropofagia das culturas nacionais pós-coloniais, o autor explora muito bem como essa transmissão de ideias e legados se propaga através do tempo e do espaço. mudanças não surgem do absoluto nada, mas são resultado de processos históricos complexos e interligados que podem ser retraçados (ou não) para uma melhor compreensão de como chegamos aonde estamos.
simplesmente fascinante, a escrita é muito agradável e a linha de raciocínio é muito clara, além de trazer informações relevantes e vastas. a abrangência geográfica e histórica continua sendo um ponto alto das obras do autor q li, sempre preocupado em explorar diversas regiões do mundo em diferentes tempos de modo a nos dar uma visão completa da história humana. tomara q o próximo dele não demore!!
February 18, 2023
على عكس التطور البيولوجي ، الذي يتحرك ببطء ولكنه يحافظ على التغييرات التكيفية بشكل دائم في الحمض النووي ، يعتمد التطور الثقافي على الذاكرة البشرية وتقنيات التدريس. هذه التقنيات ، والمؤسسات التي تمارس فيها ، يمكن أن تتدهور بسهولة عندما يفقد الناس الاهتمام بها ، أو يمكن تدميرها بواسطة قوة خارجية. إذا تم كسر خط النقل ، سواء بسبب الانهيار الأرضي أو تغير المناخ أو الحرب ، فإن المعرفة تضيع. تختفي ما لم يكن هناك أثر ، مثل رسوم الكهوف ، بعض بقايا المواد التي تعطي المتأخرين فكرة عما كان يُراد نقله في السابق إلى الأجيال اللاحقة.
زخارف الكهف ليست سوى أجزاء من ثقافة أكبر ، شظايا دون تفسير. ما ينقص هو نقل القصص والعروض والطقوس والأساطير من شخص لآخر والتي من شأنها أن تعطي هذه الآثار أهميتها الكاملة. لكن الآثار أفضل من لا شيء. لقد سمحوا للمجموعة الثانية من البشر - والمجموعة الثالثة : نحن - بإلقاء نظرة خاطفة على شيء ما في وقت سابق.
في بعض الحالات ، وضع فنانو الكهوف أيديهم في الطين أو الصبغة ورسموا علاماتهم على الجدران. وفي حالات أخرى ، "دهنوا" حواف يدٍ موضوعة على الصخرة ، تاركين مخططها واضحًا. بعض بصمات اليد هذه مميزة بدرجة كافية بحيث يمكن نسبها إلى شخص واحد. تعبر عن شيء فردي: لقد كنت هنا وساهمت في صنع هذا العالم الرمزي من خلال ترك هذا الأثر للمستقبل.
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Martin Puchner
Culture
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
زخارف الكهف ليست سوى أجزاء من ثقافة أكبر ، شظايا دون تفسير. ما ينقص هو نقل القصص والعروض والطقوس والأساطير من شخص لآخر والتي من شأنها أن تعطي هذه الآثار أهميتها الكاملة. لكن الآثار أفضل من لا شيء. لقد سمحوا للمجموعة الثانية من البشر - والمجموعة الثالثة : نحن - بإلقاء نظرة خاطفة على شيء ما في وقت سابق.
في بعض الحالات ، وضع فنانو الكهوف أيديهم في الطين أو الصبغة ورسموا علاماتهم على الجدران. وفي حالات أخرى ، "دهنوا" حواف يدٍ موضوعة على الصخرة ، تاركين مخططها واضحًا. بعض بصمات اليد هذه مميزة بدرجة كافية بحيث يمكن نسبها إلى شخص واحد. تعبر عن شيء فردي: لقد كنت هنا وساهمت في صنع هذا العالم الرمزي من خلال ترك هذا الأثر للمستقبل.
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Martin Puchner
Culture
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
Read
March 6, 2024A really enjoyable read, especially in the sort of bite-sized way I get to in between classes. It maybe oversells its premise of being this grand story of culture and meaning-making (I think kind of notably it way oversells the modern angle, k-pop is only mentioned briefly in the epilogue), but it is nonetheless an interesting account of how meaning is stored and transferred between cultures.
Want to read
December 27, 2024January 30, 2025
The elusive 5 stars for books that changed my worldview - in this case, culture, humanities, and humanity.
May 13, 2024
In talking about the importance of the arts and the humanities, the author describes fifteen times in history where they made a difference. A fascinating dive into our past - but not just a book on history.
July 12, 2024
‘컬쳐’는 다양한 시대와 인물들을 다루는데, 특히 비교적 덜 알려진 (적어도 나는 잘 몰랐던) 아소카 왕, 현장, 세이 쇼나곤, 카몽이스, 조지 엘리엇 등에 대한 이야기가 그 자체로도 흥미로웠다. 각 일화는 상이한 문화들의 다양한 측면과 변화의 양상을 잘 드러낸다. 특정한 역사적 상황이 사람들의 생각을 형성한다는 유물론의 사상이나, 헤겔의 역사관 (진실을 찾기 위해 과거를 연구해서는 안 되며, 과거는 과거로서 연구해야 한다) 등의 등장 배경이나 그것들이 태동한 시대에 대해서도 엿볼 수 있었다.
프랑스 혁명의 한 축이었던 계몽주의의 모호함에 대해 이야기하는 부분도 기억에 남는다. 계몽주의가 해방과 진보의 수단으로 이용된 역사적 맥락도 있지만, 소위 ‘문명화 사명’을 가진 계몽된 세력이 덜 계몽된 국가나 집단에 대해 강제적인 계몽을 자행하는 근거로 오용되며, 식민주의와 억압의 명분이 되기도 했다
프랑스 혁명의 한 축이었던 계몽주의의 모호함에 대해 이야기하는 부분도 기억에 남는다. 계몽주의가 해방과 진보의 수단으로 이용된 역사적 맥락도 있지만, 소위 ‘문명화 사명’을 가진 계몽된 세력이 덜 계몽된 국가나 집단에 대해 강제적인 계몽을 자행하는 근거로 오용되며, 식민주의와 억압의 명분이 되기도 했다
November 18, 2024
I picked this up despite thinking that it's another sweeping attempt to summarise the world's history into a rather slim volume, only because it came highly recommended by someone. But I was wrong - the central focus of the book is on how "culture" is created, stored, transmitted, and warped over time. It's a pretty interesting perspective, one that I had never thought deeply about in all my readings of history books. And the author does this by using quite a diverse set of examples from different points in history - usual suspects like ancient Egypt, Rome, and mediaeval Europe are nicely complemented by ancient India, Aztecs meeting the Spanish, 20th century Nigeria among others.
The writing is pretty easy to read and peppered with cultural references throughout, which if you're a trivia nut like me will greatly appreciate - and maybe annoy you a little if you are like me and love looking up something/someone new you came across on your phone immediately, because it's gonna happen a lot.
The writing is pretty easy to read and peppered with cultural references throughout, which if you're a trivia nut like me will greatly appreciate - and maybe annoy you a little if you are like me and love looking up something/someone new you came across on your phone immediately, because it's gonna happen a lot.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 9, 2024
2.5 ⭐️. This book I think was a good introduction to art and culture and did a good job of shedding light on cultures that are not western and predominately white unlike what most art history classes focus on. However, I did feel like the book was not advertised very well as it sounded like we were going to get a wide range of culture all the way to present day when in reality there was a lot of prehistoric art up until the 1700, only mentioning K-Pop in the epilogue. I also wish that the chapters and different time periods had more of a flow and connection to one another while it felt very separated and sometimes random. I think this book would be really good for people who are just starting to get interested in art and culture but as someone who was hoping to dig a bit deeper and learn more, I felt this book lacked in a lot of areas.
May 4, 2025
Це дуже цікава книга, яку мені випало редагувати. Професор відстежує мандрівку деяких культурних надбань від їхнього створення до наших часів, паралельно міркуючи про культуру, культурну апропріацію, крадіїв творів мистецтва, завдяки яким, за іронією долі, деякі твори й збереглися.
April 19, 2023
While many of the chapters of this book are fascinating and I learned a lot, there didn’t seem to me to be a clear arc of what the title proclaims—how ‘culture’ came into being and how it was passed on, changed, and reinvented in successive generations. At time, Mr. Puchner comes close, but in the end, I was left wanting more and a bit dissappointed.
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