The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting by Anne Trubek

From Monday, February 5 to Friday, February 16, 2024. Read by Melvin Hinton.

In the digital age of instant communication, handwriting is less important than ever, and in fact fewer schoolchildren are being taught how to write in cursive. Signatures became scribbles. Some see it as a sign of the decline of society. In The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, Anne Trubek reveals the long and important impact that handwriting has had on culture and humanity—from the first recorded handwriting on the clay tablets of the Sumerians some four thousand years ago to the invention of the alphabet as we know it. I know, because handwritten manuscripts are so valuable today. Every innovation over thousands of years has threatened existing norms and entrenched interests. For Trubek, the decline of handwriting and even its removal from daily life does not signal the decline of civilization, but rather the next stage in the evolution of communication.

(Bloomsbury, ISBN: 9781620402153)

Subject: “I'll Sit Down and Write Myself a Letter,” Fat Waller, The Best of Fat Waller