Download or read book The Power of the Written Word written by Alfred Burns and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 1989 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how developments in the technology of writing and literacy stimulated changes in Western civilization from its beginnings to the present. The study suggests that a few rather short periods between long static intervals generated significant cultural and cognitive innovations which still dominate «modern» civilization. Concentrating on these milestone eras - the first urban civilization in the Near East, the Greek and Roman periods, and the Renaissance - the author finds a consistent association of advances in the technique of writing and literacy with intense intellectual creativity.