? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Consider this your formal introduction to the arts throughout history. In this volume, titled Culture: The Story of Us, From Cave Art to K-Pop, renowned novelist, educator, and public intellectual Martin Puchner walks us through major episodes of history through a series of human accomplishments and events we continue to admire and learn from today. From the Chauvet cave where torch-yielding men and women left their indelible marks on the walls to Nefertiti all the way to Plato’s works, the Aztec civilization, and the French Enlightenment — the book surveys pivotal moments that have shaped global cultural trends, philosophies, and reasoning. But it is also more than that: Rather than being a “defense of the Western canon,” as the author puts it, Puchner goes beyond the restrictive establishment where culture is neatly defined. By introducing new voices that rose from an amalgam of influences, enmeshment, and “engagement across barriers of time and place,” he provides his readers with a richer, more complex — and admittedly “messier” — view of humanity as a culture-producing collective.

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