Conceived and written by Peter Greenaway, the series The Historians--to be published in a literary form, in its entirety, in 100 volumes, over the next ten years--creates and examines in exhausting detail the 100 year history of a great continent as an encyclopedic compendium of everything in the world gathered together in one place. The novel The Rise and Fall of Gestures Drama, Book 39 announces itself as the first in this 100-book...