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The golden thread : the story of writing / Ewan Clayton.

by Clayton, Ewan.

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Counterpoint, [2014]

Written communication -- History.

Written communication -- Social aspects.

Writing -- History.

Writing -- Social aspects.

Writing -- Materials and instruments.

Literacy -- History.

9781619022423 (hc.)

1619022427 (hc.)

407 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

"First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Atlantic Books"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-391) and index.

Roman foundations -- The convenience of the codex -- Speaking through the senses -- The New World : script and print -- Turning the page : Reformation and renewal -- Handwriting returns -- Putting the world of the written word in order -- The coming of industry -- The Industrial Age -- Revolutions-- in art and print -- Alternative dreams -- The material artefact.

From the simple representative shapes used to record transactions of goods and animals in ancient Egypt, to the sophisticated typographical resources available to the twenty-first-century computer user, the story of writing is the story of human civilization itself. Ewan Clayton marks each step in the historical development of writing, and explores the social and cultural impact of every stage: the invention of the alphabet; the replacement of the papyrus scroll with the codex in the late Roman period; the perfecting of printing using movable type in the fifteenth century and the ensuing spread of literacy; the industrialization of printing during the Industrial Revolution; the impact of artistic Modernism on the written word in the early twentieth century, and of the digital switchover at the century's close.

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