how writing made us human, 3000 BCE to now /
Walter Stephens.
- Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023.
- xix, 532 p.; 23 cm.
- Information cultures .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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 -- Chapter Six: The Christian Scriptures -- From Scripture to Text: Cultural Clashes and the Defense of Uniqueness -- Part III. Writing in the Middle Ages -- An Age of Paradoxical Optimism, 650- -- Pessimism in the Age of Rediscovery: Renaissance Humanism, 1350- -- Part IV. Toward Modernity -- Alternating Currents, 1450- -- A Second Age of Scripture, 1500- -- The Age of Grand Collections, 1600- -- Skepticism and Imagination, 1600- -- The Age of Decipherment, 1800- -- The Age of Media, 1950-.
"The author presents a sweeping history of writing and the way it has preserved cultural practices, traditions, and knowledge throughout human history. In each case, real and imagined, ancient and modern, the author shows us how stories of books, their creators, and their preservation over time inspired wonder and an endless appetite for historical revelation"--
9781421446646
Writing--History. Writing--Philosophy. Written communication--History. Books--History. Authorship--History. Intellectual life--History.