Table of Contents

1: Writing and its emergence
2: Development and diffusion of writing
3: Disappearance of scripts
4: Decipherment and undeciphered scripts
5: How writing systems work
6: Alphabets
7: Chinese and Japanese writing
8: Scribes and materials
9: Writing goes electronic
Chronology: 3300 BC to AD 2000
References
Further reading
Index

About the Author

Andrew Robinson is a Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge and holds degrees from Oxford University and the School of Oriental Studies, London. He is now a full-time writer who has worked in book publishing, television and journalism, most recently as Literary Editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement from 1994-2006. His previous publications include The Story of Writing, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael
Ventris, and Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts.

Reviews

User-friendly survey.
*Steven Poole, The Guardian*