Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace

In this penetrating book, James O'Donnell takes a reading on the promise and the threat of electronic technology for our literate future. O'Donnell reinterprets today's communication revolution through a series of refracted comparisons with earlier revolutionary periods: the transition from oral to written culture, from the papyrus scroll to the codex, from copied manuscript to print. His engaging portrayals of these analogous epochal moments suggest that our steps into cyberspace are not as radical as we might think. Observing how technologies of the word have affected the shaping of culture in the past, and how technolgical transformation has been managed, O'Donnell offers modes for navigating the electronic transformation now underway.