A History of Reading

Steven Roger Fischer’s fascinating book traces the complete story of reading from the time when symbol first became sign through to the electronic texts of the present day. A broad, accessible history which assesses the future of reading and examines the impact of computers and the internet, as well as modern theories of how reading is processed by the brain.

Steven Roger Fischer is Director of the Institute of Polynesian Languages and Literatures in Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of "Glyph-breaker" (1997), "A History of Language" (Reaktion, 1999) and "A History of Writing" (Reaktion, 2001).

Describing ancient forms of reading and the various modes that were necessary to read different writing systems and scripts, Fischer turns to Asia and the Americas and discusses the forms and developments of completely divergent dimensions of reading.

The author examines the innovative re-inventions of reading in Europe and the Middle East in the Middle Ages, and also describes the revolution initiated by the invention of the printing press, which caused an explosion in the book trade due to the availablity and ansion in books’ subject-matter and audience. He describes the emergence of broadsheets, newspapers and public readings; and traces the effect of changing fonts on general legibility.

Fischer discusses society’s dedication to public literacy in the sweeping educational reforms of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the appearance of free libraries, gender differences in reading matter, public advertising and the ‘forbidden’ lists of Church, State and the unemancipated. He looks to the future where read communication may soon overtake oral communication because of the increasing use of personal computers, the internet and text-messaging. He also looks at ‘visual language’ and modern theories of how reading is processed in the human brain.