The Golden Thread: The Story of Writing

By Ewan Clayton

The Golden Thread is an enthralling and accessible history of the cultural miracle that is the written word. It is an invention that has been used to share ideas in every field of human endeavour, and a motor of cultural, scientific and political progress.

From the simple representative shapes used to record transactions of goods and animals in ancient Egypt, to the sophisticated typographical resources available to the twenty-first-century computer user, the story of writing is the story of human civilization itself. Ewan Clayton marks each step in the historical development of writing, and explores the social and cultural impact of every stage: the invention of the alphabet; the replacement of the papyrus scroll with the codex in the late Roman period; the perfecting of printing using moveable type in the fifteenth century and the ensuing spread of literacy; the industrialization of printing during the Industrial Revolution; the impact of artistic Modernism on the written word in the early twentieth century - and of the digital switchover at the century's close.

The Golden Thread raises issues of urgent interest for a society living in an era of unprecedented change to the tools and technologies of written communication. Chief amongst these is the fundamental question: 'What does it mean to be literate in the world of the early twenty-first century?' The Golden Thread belongs on the bookshelves of anyone who is inquisitive not just about the centrality of writing in the history of humanity, but also about its future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Release date: Sep 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781782390343

Ewan Clayton

Ewan Clay ton es calígrafo y profesor de Diseño en la Universidad de Sunderland y codirector del International Research Centre for Calligraphy. Durante años fue asesor de Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), donde formaba parte de un grupo de investigadores centrados en documentos y en comunicaciones contemporáneas. Reconocido calígrafo, ha expuesto y enseñado este arte en diversas partes del mundo.

Reviews for The Golden Thread

[kukulaj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think Clayton just tried too hard. He has a point which is probably quite profound. It has to do with the place of writing in human existence, at the individual and social level and really as a core dimension of the play between individual and society that gives human existence its deep character. How to get such a profound point across? Ha, maybe Clayton was going a bit down the track that Charles Darwin set for himself. To establish a fundamental truth requires the marshaling of a body of evidence that spans the range of implications of that truth. Darwin got frightened into publishing before he was really ready, by Wallace beating him to the finish line. I wonder if Clayton got pushed into publishing somehow. He covers a vast range of history and cultural phenomena, but never really digs into any aspect or phase with the intensity that could really pull the reader into intimate grappling at the level he is attempting to plumb. Clayton covers a vast range of history, from ancient Egypt to the internet. He skims across dozens of writing systems, touching on details of shapes... but how, anyway, does one bracket a serif? We are told about ways to cut nibs and the chemical makeup of lithographic resist and how the nozzles on cans of spray paint can be interchanged... but these points are just touched and never really given thorough analysis. Often one can say more by saying less, and I think that approach might have worked better here. It is wonderful that Clayton had a career that encompassed such a wide range, but I think this book would have communicated more effectively had it been less a reflection of his career and more a reflection of some particular event and how the full depth of human experience is folded into that event. A tighter focus would have made the book richer.But there really is a grand heap of fun here. I ordered a book by David Jones and a biography of him, that's the path I chose to follow from here. The notes and references are very rich - a great mine of starting points! As an introductory survey to writing systems, this is really quite a good book! It just wanders a bit too much to give it enough coherence to make a solid point, to hit hard, to be great. But hey, a great book is no easy thing to write!

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An accessible, leisurely grand tour through the history of writing.

[mouldywarp_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating history of writing. Nice easy writing style and full of interesting information.