Book Talk: The Written World at the Boston Athenaeum

The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization

Martin Puchner 

In The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Martin Puchner tells the story of literature and its power to shape people, civilizations, and world history by exploring sixteen selected key stories from over 4,000 years of world literature.  Beginning with the Iliad's influence on Alexander the Great to J. K. Rowling today, Martin Puncher takes us on a remarkable journey through history, as he tells stories of people whose lives and beliefs led them to create groundbreaking texts that affected the world they were born into, and the world in which we live today.