Re: The Alphabet vs the Goddess

[Jim Aikens <jaikens -at- ZOOMIT -dot- COM>]

>What brought it home to me was his assertion that the books that
>have shaped our society -- works of history, philosophy, literature,
>and science -- are thick tomes, devoid of pictures. I'm not sure how
>Shakespeare fits in, and the works of Euclid and Newton did use
>pictures, but the point is largely true.

Shakespeare didn't write books (except for a few long poems), he wrote
scripts for real-time multimedia presentations. And as for "thick tomes
devoid of pictures", maybe we have Gutenberg to blame for that, not the art
of writing. The few illustrated manuscripts I have looked at were full of
illustrations. Medieval iconography also suggests that images were very
important communication tools, especially since few could read.

La plus ca change, . . ..

jim aikens





In fact, even up to 25
>years ago, most technical writing was heavy on prose and light on
>pictures. Technical illustration was a specialty, not something that
>writers tossed in effortlessly as they went along.
>
>Shlain talks about how images like the mushroom cloud and the view
>of Earth from space have affected people in our time as profoundly
>as any book. Television, the laser printer, the Web -- who knows how
>these things are changing us?
>
>I've seen a huge increase in the amount and role of visual content
>since I've been reading and writing technical documents. Is this
>just because our tools are better, or is our audience changing as
>well?  ...RM
>
>
>Richard Mateosian <srm -at- cyberpass -dot- net>    www.cyberpass.net/~srm/
>Review Editor, IEEE Micro                Berkeley, CA
>
>(c) Copyright 1998.  All rights reserved.
>
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