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 series of histories: "Book 39 of The Historians traces a history of Gestures Theater on the Continent from its very simple beginnings to the sophistications of 39 years later when the genre across the 50 continental countries has expanded to a phenomenal degree and virtually engaged the imaginations of the entire continent's population of 300 million. The theory and practice of Silent Gestures Theater excites intense debate and controversy when it expands its characteristics to embrace text and sound and murder, to bring down censorship pressures that ultimately destroy it. ".