A History of Writing adopts the principle that writing doesn't reproduce speech, it makes it visible. Image-making evolved into writing and governed the way it was used. For example, the invention of ideograms was linked to divination and star-gazing in both Mesopotamia and China.
The first section is devoted to the oldest, non-alphabet methods of writing, and to the ingenious developments devised by civilizations that chose to adapt them to their language and culture. The second focuses on the history and spread of alphabets. The third shows how the Western alphabet has reincorporated imagery into writing in various hand-written and printed forms, and how different writing systems are now affected by computer technology.