The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development in the first few years of the twenty-first century? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world’s two biggest nations?
What Should I Read Next?: 70 University of Virginia Professors Recommend Readings in History, Politics, Literature, Math, Science, Technology, the Art
Even the most well-read among us feel gaps in our knowledge. Former English majors or art students want to understand the monetary system; mathematicians or doctors just want a great novel.
From humans' earliest scratches on stone and bone to computer-generated systems and scripts, A History of Writing offers a broad investigation into the origins and development of writing throughout the world. The book offers a global overview of writing's ancient story in a readable, accessible style, making it a perfect introduction to the history of the world's writing systems, recommended to student and specialist alike.
It is tempting to take the tremendous rate of contemporary linguistic change for granted. What is required, in fact, is a radical reinterpretation of what language is.
Stephen Roger Fischer begins his books with an examination of the modes of communication used by dolphins, birds and primates as the first contexts in which the concept of 'language' might be applied. As he charts the history of language from the times of Homo erectus, Neanderthal humans and Homo sapiens through to the nineteenth century when the science of linguistics was first developed.
