Book Review

Open in design and layout, rich in exemplary, often beautiful, images--see Napoleon’s troops awed by obelisks and a carved wall--this book, a concise and up-to-date introduction to the fascinating and vital technology we call writing is even better than it looks. ...The author is not a linguist, but he is a well-informed and assured writer; with clarity and a way of using our partial knowledge.

The book has three sections of increasing length: how writing works, extinct writing, and living writing. ...The history of decipherments is fascinating. Ten or so important written languages remain incompletely or not at all known, from the Indus Valley signs to the mysterious script of Easter Island and the strange stamped letters of the Phaistos clay disk of Crete. Some seem hopeless unless we find new material.

Language is a dominant trait of the human mind, where more and more science will come to center. Some of the easier problems now at hand are treated here in substantial and lively reading, recommended for students , teachers, and families.

~ Philip amd Phylis Morrison, Scientific American exerpt