Okay, gang, here we go! I’m starting up another Western Civ User’s Guide. This time around we’re looking at reading and writing. If you’re a loyal follower, you know we’re all about the history of ideas here at Western Civ User’s Guide world headquarters. In this book I want to explore 2 themes. One, how an ancient invention—the alphabet—was so essential that it’s endured down to our own time. Two, that the history of Western Civ can be seen as a series of culture-changing transfers of power from privileged elites (usually played in the movies by the late Alan Rickman) to the broader population (regular shmoes). For example, the alphabet and later moveable type brought literacy to huge amounts of people; the printing press and later the internet increased the distribution of information.
In case anyone’s fuzzy about what exactly Western Civilization is, here are links to a couple of brilliant explanations:
https://johnmanders.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/what-is-a-civilization/
https://johnmanders.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/where-in-the-world-is-western-civilization/
As usual, there will be lousy gags and badly-drawn cartoons squeezed in between bits of actual history. This is interactive—chime in if you have information to share. I heartily thank you weirdos for following. See you next post!
Pingback: AGAIN! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Back in caveman days | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Counting your chickens before numbers | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: How to start up a civilization | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Putting the pot in Mesopotamia | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Chicken scratchings | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Stylin’ with the stylus | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Writing gets complicated | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Ideograms | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Learn to be a scribe! Earn big money! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The birth of Western Lit | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Bull of Heaven | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Darius the Great | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Persian Postal Service | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: I, Darius, proclaim | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Crytograms | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Meanwhile, in Egypt… | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Down by the river | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The first pharaoh | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Writing of the gods | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Papyrus | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Papyrus pens | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Papyrus brushes | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Ink | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Logograms | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Rebus | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Milton Glaser and logograms | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: So let it be written | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: But what does it mean? | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Everybody wants Egypt | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Alexander whups the Persians | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Ptolemy I Soter | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Carpet bombshell | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Battle of Actium! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Bireme | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Merry Christmas! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The new religion | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: In hock Señor Wences | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: It’s official! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: That old wheel of fortune | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Napoleon’s soldiers discover something big | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Cartouche is not something you get from a long automobile trip | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The hardest cryptogram evurrrr | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Phoenicians | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Copper and Tin | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: A sea-change | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Twenty-two little letters | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Canaanite turquoise miners fool around during lunch break | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: A win for the shmos | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Abjad | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The purple people | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Carthage | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: How my sketches evolve | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Tfel-ot-thgir (right-to-left) | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Hebrew alphabet | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Guest blogger: Ilene Winn-Lederer | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Things go sideways for Israel | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Babylonian Captivity | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The alefbet | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Those really ancient Greeks | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: I ax a question | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Whatever happened to Linear A? | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Linear B | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Homer busts a dactyl | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Vowels | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Homer starts the Vowel Movement | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Boustrophedon: as the ox plows | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Alpha to Omega | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: We need a gag writer! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Greece’s savage conqueror | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Calligraphy | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Writ large | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Serifs | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: We have a winner! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Parchment | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Making parchment | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: All creatures | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Les roules | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Scrolls are still around | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Maybe that’s why medias res got moved to the front | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The whole megillah in one sentence | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: It was bound to happen | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Iron gall ink | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Gall and vitriol! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Rome-schooling | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Learning Latin | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Fringe Romans and country men | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Today’s post brought to you by the letter P, or maybe F | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Today’s post is brought to you by the letter C | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Today’s post is brought to you by the letters I, J, U, V, W and Y. | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The sack of Rome | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Edward Gibbon, 1737 – 1794 | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Please hold while I speed-read through Gibbon | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The die is cast! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The die is cast! Part II | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The die is cast! Part III | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The die is cast! Part IV | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: How do you run an empire once you have one? | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Cheeseburgers | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Help wanted | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The mighty Alcuin | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: We’re going to need more books | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Uncials | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Style Book of Alcuin | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Same words, different tune | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Alcuin solves the problem | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Polyphony | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Charlemagne’s culture boom | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Higher education | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Okay, only some people read | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: From their lips to God’s ears | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Tall & skinny | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Black Letter | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: How barbaric | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Last night I dreamt I read Manders’ blog again | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: And more Goth | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: A fine romance | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Another monopoly on communications | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: There are bad times just around the corner | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Mongolian Empire! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Rats and fleas | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Doom | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Dance of Death | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Peasant’s Revolt | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Martin Luther | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Honey, I started the Reformation | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Relief printing | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: How block printing is done | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: That one afternoon hanging out at the winery really paid off | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Chinese invent movable type | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Thanks, Phoenicians! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: What’s metal type made of? | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Casting metal type | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Composing type | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: This ink is all wrong | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: How to get better ink: Step One | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: How to get better ink: Step Two | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: How to get better ink: Step Three | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Step Four: we got better ink! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: PAPER! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Deckle and mold | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Paper or parchment? | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Any rags? | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The proud tradition of not making money in publishing | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Going viral 1517-style | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Arrivederci, Rome | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Frontier poetry | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Beowulf in one sentence | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Canterbury Tales | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Norman Conquest and all that | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: La Chanson de Roland | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The once and future blog post | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Geoffrey of Monmouth | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Le Morte d’Arthur | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The printing press comes to England | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Aubrey Beardsley | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Yes, I’m a King Arthur geek | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: El Cid | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: A tiny little sermonette from your old Uncle John | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Don Quixote | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The first one gets to choose | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Format | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Pages & leaves | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Folios and quartos | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Baby books | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: This isn’t what I’m used to | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Nicolas Jenson | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Most Serene! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: …And we pass the savings on to you, our customer | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Aldus Manutius | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Francesco Griffo | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Who owns what you create? | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: It’s okay to speak your own language now | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Citation, please! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: It was a big deal | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: More Reformation—sorry | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The pamphleteers | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Satire | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Happy Guy Fawkes Day! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The Church of England | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Puritans & Pilgrims | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: There were some downsides | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Wait, there’s more! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Rembrandt | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Thanks for hanging in there | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Thanks for sailing with Mayflower! Please fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the trip | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: The printing press saves the day | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Those lucky, lucky Pilgrims | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: William Brewster | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Pilgrims and printing | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: We’ll be right back! | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Maybe having one guy in charge who has absolute power wasn’t our brightest idea | John Manders' Blog
Pingback: Early newspapers | John Manders' Blog