A profound, eloquent meditation on the history of writing, from Mesopotamia to multimedia.Why does writing exist? What does it mean to those who write? Born from the interplay of natural and cultural history, the seemingly magical act of writing has continually expanded our consciousness. Portrayed in mythology as either a gift from heroes or a curse from the gods, it has been used as both an instrument of power and a channel of the divine; a means of social bonding and of individual self-definition. Now, as the revolution once wrought by the printed word gives way to the digital age, many fear that the art of writing, and the nuanced thinking nurtured by writing, are under threat. But writing itself, despite striving for permanence, is always in the midst of growth and transfiguration.Celebrating the impulse to record, invent, and make one's mark, Matthew Battles reenchants the written word for all those susceptible to the power and beauty of writing in all of its forms. 15 illustrations

What do walking, weaving, observing, storytelling, singing, drawing and writing have in common? The answer is that they all proceed along lines. In this extraordinary book Tim Ingold imagines a world in which everyone and everything consists of interwoven or interconnected lines and lays the foundations for a completely new discipline: the anthropological archaeology of the line. Ingold’s argument leads us through the music of Ancient Greece and contemporary Japan, Siberian labyrinths and Roman roads, Chinese calligraphy and the printed alphabet, weaving a path between antiquity and the present. Setting out from a puzzle about the relation between speech and song, Ingold considers how two kinds of line – threads and traces – can turn into one another as surfaces form or dissolve. He reveals how our perception of lines has changed over time, with modernity converting to point-to-point connectors before becoming straight, only to be ruptured and fragmented by the postmodern world. Drawing on a multitude of disciplines including archaeology, classical studies, art history, linguistics, psychology, musicology, philosophy and many others, and including more than seventy illustrations, this book takes us on an exhilarating intellectual journey that will change the way we look at the world and how we go about in it.

Product Description: Typology research is extremely important in both proposing classification frameworks and in promoting the careful investigation and analysis of the core concepts inherent within the classification contrasts employed. More exemplary of the latter aspect, the present collection of papers on the typology of writing systems address a number of significant linguistic and psycholinguistic issues surrounding the classification of writing systems...read more

Uses the aggregate supply/ aggregate demand model as a fundamental tool for learning macroeconomics. This book presents complicated concepts in a straightforward manner and uses timely economic data. It uses puzzles, issues, and examples to provide a balance of theory to application.

This popular and comprehensive anthology presents cogent, provocative articles from differing political perspectives on major issues in postwar America. In addition to articles by leading historians, the editors have assembled first-person accounts of various issues by those who have contributed to the shaping of America's rich history, including Joseph McCarthy and Bill Clinton, as well as Robin Morgan, Anne Moody, and Phyllis Schlafly. For this edition, Chafe and Sitkoff have collaborated with a new coeditor, Beth Bailey, to give this classic text a fresh outlook. The sixth edition has been extensively revised to incorporate new documents and the most up-to-date articles, covering such recent events as the September 11 attacks. With lively and enlightening introductions to each section and headnotes providing a context for the articles, A History of Our Time helps students make sense of the past fifty years of America's sometimes tumultuous but always fascinating history.

Product Description: Winner, Top 100 Books on Science, American Scientist, 2001In 1992, the University of Texas Press published Before Writing, Volume I: From Counting to Cuneiform and Before Writing, Volume II: A Catalog of Near Eastern Tokens. In these two volumes, Denise Schmandt-Besserat set forth her groundbreaking theory that the cuneiform script invented in the Near East in the late fourth millennium B...read more

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