Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Wide ranging: from excellent to awful..., September 5, 2000
This book is a visual delight. Small (7"by 5"), thick (207 pp), and heavy (10 oz), this book is divided into two sections. The first two-thirds, on heavy white clay stock, is lavishly illustrated in full color. Gorgeous! The last third ("Documents"), printed on standard paper, also is heavily illustrated (but only in black and white!) ---- Unfortunately, the text does not fully measure up to the images. For example, explanations the word "pictogram" are given to the point of tedium! The Documents section contains articles than approach gibberish. For example, Hassan Massoudy's contribution (1986), about calligraphy: "The moment when the calligrapher achieves total concentration represents the beginning of a transport of energy that will help him to overcome all oppressive difficulties. He will seek, in the deepest part of himself, his true path." (Huh?) On the other hand, from this book I learned what calligrams are, that Arabic and Hebrew share an 18-letter alphabet, and that hieroglyphs means "sacred writings". After years of hearing about "demotic script", I discovered that it is the common people's script. I learned how to trim a feather to make a quill pen. I learned that Francois Thureau-Dangin (1872- 1944) produced the first translation of Sumerian, the earliest identified form of writing. In short this book is an excellent introduction to a variety of topics to be followed up later on one's own, but a bit thin if one has an interest in any specific area. As others have noted, it is absolutely superlative in depicting alphabets, scripts, typefaces, calligraphic styles, manuscripts, engravings, paintings, folios, stellae, frescoes, papyruses, tablets, and so on. It is a graphic feast accompanied with a sometimes incomprehensibile text - a sad fate for a book entitled "Writing".
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting intoduction, but not a full text, January 3, 2001
A small book, recapping briefly the history of writing from Akkad and Sumer through the development of printing in the West and China. There are, in fact, two sections: First, the overview of languages and writing, without an overly forceful emphasis on the West, which avoids the taint of cultural bias nicely; second, a group of documents ~ quotations ~ from all sorts of sources, about writing, the alphabets, ideograms, and more. The documents are interesting, though a little confused, especially as regarding the plates that illustrate them; it is not always possible to tell what is what. And the first section is a fascinating overview, well written (or well translated [from the French], it's hard to know with a translation), though with little in it i didn't actually know already. The most important thing that a book of this nature can do is to whet the appetite for more. Consider mine whetted.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pleasing introduction to the history of writing, August 19, 2000
As a compact introduction to the whole history of writing, this little tome makes for a lovely hour's browsing. There is a lot of information packed into this book, and many color plates to serve as examples of the information contained in the text.However, this book is definately just an introduction to the subject. There is no way that such a small book, with more page space devoted to pictures than text, can provide anything more than a passing glance at the history it purports to cover. That said, I will again say that it is a very user-friendly, high-quality book about a fascinating subject often overlooked in our daily lives. I, myself, bought it specifically for the pictures; there are many, many books on the subject, but few so profusely illustrated.
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