Includes bibliographical references and index.

Writing and its emergence -- Development and diffusion of wrtiting -- Disappearance of scripts -- Decipherment and undeciphered scripts -- How writing systems work -- Alphabets -- Chinese and Japanese writing -- Scribes and materials -- Writing goes electronic.

"Starting with the origins of writing five thousand years ago, with cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, Andrew Robinson explains how these early forms of writing developed into hundreds of scripts including the Roman alphabet and the Chinese characters. He reveals how the modern writing system we take for granted - including airport signage and electronic text messaging - resemble ancient scripts much more closely than we think."--BOOK JACKET.