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Six periods, from cuneiform writing to the present, and what each part of the world has left from them.
- What has survived
- Manuscripts and copies
- Print spreads
- Knowledge and revolutions
- Nations and the novel
- The whole world writes
- -3000–500What has survivedEleven works for three thousand years. That figure does not tell what was composed, it tells what crossed time: a poem cut into clay tablets, a Greek…12 works
- 500–1450Manuscripts and copiesFor a thousand years a book is an object copied by hand, expensive, rare, kept in a monastery, a mosque, a temple or a court. That decides what is…121 works
- 1450–1650Print spreadsPrinting does not change literature everywhere at the same time or in the same way. In Europe it takes a book from a few dozen copies to a few…97 works
- 1650–1800Knowledge and revolutionsA hundred and fifty works for a century and a half that invents criticism. Laws, religion, education and the rights of women are argued over, and the…152 works
- 1800–1900Nations and the novelSeven hundred and forty-three works, five times the previous century. Three causes combine: the school that manufactures readers, the press that…749 works
- 1900–The whole world writesFive thousand two hundred and three works, four in five of the catalogue. This is the century of independence, and the regional picture is turned…5374 works