Writing developed, but mostly just in religious quarters, where the stories and their interpretations were the lifeblood. No one could carry everything just in their heads.ĭifferent societies dealt with it in different ways. As time went on and history stacked up, oral stories became too big to handle. There was not much knowledge to impart, no overwhelming commerce to track, no need for government processes. In the beginning, there was no need for alphabetizing anything, or even for an alphabet.
It’s another gem from the author of Inside The Victorian Home, a highly appreciated and exhaustive feat, examining life for the emerging middle class in the 1800s. In A Place for Everything, she has done her usual yeoman’s job of research, and produced a book that probes in all kinds of directions for fascinating developments, accomplishments, and trivia. And by the way, there are all kinds of societies that don’t use our alphabet.
Judith Flanders is here to remind us it has a long tortured history to get to this hallowed status. We in the West think of it as standard and intuitive, its powers innate, and its services universal. The latest shibboleth of western imperialism to come under the magnifying glass is the alphabet.
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