The Golden Thread
- 416 pages
- 15 hours of reading
An authoritative and accessible history of the cultural miracle that is the written word.
Ewan Clayton Books
Ewan Clayton is Professor in Design at the University of Sunderland and co-director of the International Research Centre for Calligraphy. For a number of years he was a consultant for Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre) where he worked within a research group that focused on documents and contemporary communications. He is an award winning calligrapher and has exhibited and taught calligraphy in many parts of the world.
Writing surrounds us in the modern world--but how did it develop into the systems we use today, and given the technological developments of the 21st century, what does its future hold? This beautifully illustrated book, published to coincide with an interactive landmark British Library exhibition, celebrates the act of writing from across the globe. Exploring the history of writing and including more than 150 illustrations from carved stone inscriptions and medieval manuscripts to samples of early printing, modern handwriting, and digital inputting systems, it reflects on the use of writing over the last 5,000 years and challenges our preconceptions about writing's decline in the digital age.
