A History of Reading

Steven Roger Fischer’s fascinating book traces the complete\nstory of reading from the time when symbol first became sign\nthrough to the electronic texts of the present day. Describing\nancient forms of reading and the various modes that were necessary\nto read different writing systems and scripts, Fischer turns to\nAsia and the Americas and discusses the forms and developments of\ncompletely divergent dimensions of reading.
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\nWith the Middle Ages in Europe and the Middle East, innovative\nre-inventions of reading emerged – silent and liturgical reading;\nthe custom of lectors; reading’s focus in general education –\nwhereupon printing transformed society’s entire attitude to\nreading. Fischer charts the explosion of the book trade in this\nera, its increased audience and radically changed subject-matter;\ndescribes the emergence of broadsheets, newspapers and public\nreadings; and traces the effect of new font designs on general\nlegibility.
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\nFischer discusses society’s dedication to public literacy in the\nsweeping educational reforms of the eighteenth and nineteenth\ncenturies, and notes the appearance of free libraries, gender\ndifferences in reading matter, public advertising and the\n\“forbidden\” lists of Church, State and the unemancipated. Finally,\nhe assesses the future, in which it is likely that read\ncommunication will soon exceed oral communication through the use\nof the personal computer and the internet, and looks at \“visual\nlanguage\” and modern theories of how reading is processed in the\nhuman brain. Asking how the New Reader can reshape reading’s\nfuture, he suggests a radical new definition of what reading could\nbe.\n\n