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The Writing Revolution
Cuneiform to the Internet
Series: The Language Library
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Brief Description
An exploration of the original Information Technology – the writing systems of history The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet explores the origins, historical development, adaptations, linguistic properties, cultural context, and social impact of one of humankind's greatest inventions: writing systems. Now in its second edition,...
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The Writing Revolution
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Description
An exploration of the original Information Technology – the writing systems of history
The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet explores the origins, historical development, adaptations, linguistic properties, cultural context, and social impact of one of humankind's greatest inventions: writing systems. Now in its second edition, this popular book traces the history of writing from the earliest proto-cuneiform tablet to the latest AI-generated text. Author Amalia E. Gnanadesikan offers an engaging, highly readable narrative account of how different writing systems originated, evolved over time, and how they have represented languages around the world.
Concise, easy-to-digest chapters cover each of the world's major written traditions across time and space, including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese characters, Bronze-Age Linear B, New World writing systems, the Roman alphabet, and many others. Updated throughout, The Writing Revolution features new and expanded coverage of the Digital Age, including Unicode, the World Wide Web, emojis, generative AI, and more.
Investigating how the creation of writing made the modern world possible, The Writing Revolution:
- Covers the world's major writing systems as well as a selection of lesser-known scripts
- Discusses papyrus, paper, the printing press, digital writing, and other associated technologies
- Features engaging examples throughout, including Egyptian funerary texts, Maya calendars, Arabic calligraphy, Morse code, and modern text messaging
- Interweaves ideas from cultural studies, archaeology, linguistics, literature, anthropology, and information science
The Writing Revolution is a must-read for students of writing systems, linguistics, information science, and intellectual history, as well as general readers with an interest in the history of written language.
Series: The Language Library
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The Writing Revolution
In a world of rapid technological advancements, it can be easy to forget that writing is the original Information Technology, created to transcend the limitations of human memory and to defy time and space. The Writing Revolution picks apart the development of this communication tool to show how it has conquered the world. The Writing Revolution explores how writing has...Paperback$8099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Words of Wonder
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Why does English have so many words? Where have they all come from? Why do we now have different vocabularies for various activities? In A History of English Words, Geoffrey Hughes answers these questions in a comprehensive study of the evolution of English vocabulary which covers words as diverse as anti-disestablishmentarianism to OK, and runagate to Monicagate. His arguments are...Paperback$10799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
The Writing Revolution
An exploration of the original Information Technology – the writing systems of history The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet explores the origins, historical development, adaptations, linguistic properties, cultural context, and social impact of one of humankind's greatest inventions: writing systems. Now in its second edition, this popular book traces the history of writing from the earliest proto-cuneiform tablet to...Paperback$9599Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781394218196
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 17 July 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: Wiley-Blackwell
Edition: 2nd edition
Audience: Tertiary education
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 25.0mm
Width: 150.0mm
Height: 224.0mm
Weight: 544g
Pages: 400
About the Author
Amalia E. Gnanadesikan was the Technical Director for Language Analysis at the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language. Now retired, she has taught writing, linguistics, and writing systems at the University of Maryland, West Chester University, and Rutgers University, and published works on writing systems, phonology, and language description. She is the author of Dhivehi: The Language of the Maldives.
Also by Amalia E. Gnanadesikan
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The Writing Revolution
In a world of rapid technological advancements, it can be easy to forget that writing is the original Information Technology, created to transcend the limitations of human memory and to defy time and space. The Writing Revolution picks apart the development of this communication tool to show how it has conquered the world. The Writing Revolution explores how writing has...Paperback$8099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks
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