Collect The Letter And The Cosmos: How The Alphabet Has Shaped The Western View Of The World Author Laurence De Looze Textbook

is an interesting and factfilled book about books, letters, art and writing, Specifically, how the alphabet evolved, how it has been unchanged since the Roman days except by adding a U, and how the Mayans evolved their own pictograms.


I found some of it very well pieced together and other parts seemed to give too much depth to aspects, The illustrated medieval manuscripts are a good example of lettering in art but we also see letters in architecture, jewellery, logos and motifs.
From early Greek tablets made to tally goods, to proper lettering to carry a story, on through Greek scrolls, it's plain we have a lot for which to thank the Classical civilisations.
Scribing, printing, typing and newsprint followed,

I think the only examples the author misses of letter usage, are branding cattle, and Muslim artwork where calligraphy of a name or initial letter is used to represent a person, illustrated and coloured to show how the artist wishes to represent that person.


Those who enjoy trivia can dive in and those

who love books or writing will find endless fun facts,
I downloaded a copy from Net Galley, This is an unbiased review,
A very interesting history of letters and the alphabet by de Looze, I recommend it for a reader interested in the history of language, Oh my, what a thoughtprovoking book, I have had similar questions about a 'letterworld' analogy, and an everlasting intrigue based in typography, Surprisingly, De Looze managed to marry both of those interests into a fairly detailed exposition of letters, type, art, and philosophy, A thought provoking book about the process of articulating thought, Instead of reading it straight through, I would have benefitted from a slow read, letting each chapter sink into my awareness,

Letters and history, Letters as shapes that shaped the world,

Letters and religion, And power. And secularism. Letters as art not meant to have meaning other than as art,

So much detail went into the first half of the book, I wanted more to be written about the present day, more about letters' possible ongoing evolution in the days and years ahead,

I felt confronted by so much that I had never considered before, And that is the mark of an excellent book, I'll give it an "A, " The linguistic turn in academic studies over the past few decades has had an unfortunate tendency to overlook the materiality of writing, In this innovative volume, Laurence De Looze considers the alphabet and its discursive and material effects on Western thought, De Looze admits upfront that he is a medievalist who initially planned to focus only on his area of expertise, and that is clear in the text itself: the chapters on the medieval world are more richly researched and more heavily footnoted than the later chapters.
Additionally, I would have liked to see De Looze pay some attention to the alphabets used by visually impaired people, includingD letters and Braille.
Apart from these quibbles, however, this is a fascinating read that explores a neglected aspect of literacy studies, From our first ABCs to the Book of Revelation's statement that Jesus is "the Alpha and Omega," we see the world through our letters.
More than just a way of writing, the alphabet is a powerful concept that has shaped Western civilization and our daily lives, In The Letter and the Cosmos, Laurence de Looze probes that influence, showing how the alphabet has served as a lens through which we conceptualize the world and how the world, and sometimes the whole cosmos, has been perceived as a kind of alphabet itself.
Beginning with the ancient Greeks, he traces the use of alphabetic letters and their significance from Plato to postmodernism, offering a fascinating tour through Western history.


A sharp and entertaining examination of how languages, letterforms, orthography, and writing tools have reflected our hidden obsession with the alphabet, The Letter and the Cosmos is illustrated with copious examples of the visual and linguistic phenomena which de Looze describes.
Read it, and you'll never look at the alphabet the same way again, .