Preface: Homo scribens: Humanity and writing -- Introduction: The mystique of writing -- Complement: Writing as technology, from myth to history -- Part I: Pagan antiquity -- An age of wonder and discovery, 2500-600 BCE -- An age of philosophy, 600 BCE-400 CE -- Collections, histories, and forgeries, 300 BCE-400 CE -- Part II: Holy writ -- Writing and scripture, 600 BCE-650 CE -- The Jewish scriptures -- The Christian scriptures -- Cultural clashes and the defense of uniqueness -- Part III: Writing in the Middle Ages -- An age of paradoxical optimism, 650-1350 -- Pessimism in the age of rediscovery, 1350-1500 -- Part IV: Toward modernity -- Alternating currents, 1450-1550 -- A second age of scripture, 1500-1600 -- The age of grand collections, 1600-1800 -- Skepticism and imagination, 1600-1800 -- The age of decipherment, 1800-1950 -- The age of media, 1950-2020.
Summary:
"In How Writing Made Us Human, 3000 BCE to Now, Walter Stephens condenses the massive history of the written word into an accessible, engaging narrative. The history of writing is not merely a record of technical innovations--from hieroglyphics to computers--but something far richer: a chronicle of emotional engagement with written culture whose long arc intimates why the humanities are crucial to society. For five millennia, myths and legends provided fascinating explanations for the origins and uses of writing. These stories overflowed with enthusiasm about fabled personalities (both human and divine) and their adventures with capturing speech and preserving memory. Stories recounted how and why an ancient Sumerian king, a contemporary of Gilgamesh, invented the cuneiform writing system--or alternatively, how the earliest Mesopotamians learned everything from a hybrid man-fish. For centuries, Jews and Christians debated whether Moses or God first wrote the Ten Commandments. Throughout history, some myths of writing were literary fictions. Plato's tale of Atlantis supposedly emerged from a vast Egyptian archive of world history. Dante's vision of God as one infinite book inspired Borges's fantasy of the cosmos as a limitless library, while the nineteenth century bequeathed Mary Shelley's apocalyptic tale of a world left with innumerable books but only one surviving reader." -- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.