The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society – James Marriott

The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society – James Marriott Book Description

The world we knew is passing away and nothing will ever be the same again. Welcome to the post-literate society. Books are dying. Across the world the number of people reading is in free fall. Literacy is declining or stagnating in most developed countries. At universities, students are unable to read the books assigned to them. Addictive digital entertainment technologies have colonised our free time with infantilising ‘slop’. For the first time since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire ushered in the Dark Ages, the golden chain of knowledge linking reader to reader through the centuries is breaking. The decline in reading is the most important cultural shift of our time. The New Dark Ages is an impassioned defence of the written word and an attack on the trivial and meaningless culture of the screen. Drawing on history and classic works of literature and theory, The New Dark Ages argues that reading and writing are essential for innovation, creativity and critical thinking. Above all, the culture of print is essential to the functioning of modern democracies which require their citizens to grapple with ideas at length and in depth. And as print dies, we risk returning to the chaos, tribalism, and rage of a pre-literate society. Without any question the most important book of the year. This book is a flashing emergency light for our culture. I genuinely could not love James Marriott's writing and thinking more. Let me sign up to his literacy army right now – I would follow him anywhere – Marina Hyde Superb. The best way to make the case for good books is to write one – and in this learned and highly entertaining jeremiad, that is precisely what James Marriott has done – Tom Holland Anyone who wants to understand the world today needs urgently to read this book – Naomi Alderman If our addiction to smartphones is sapping our ability to concentrate long enough to read a book, James Marriott’s clear, engaging and original prose may yet seduce us back to it, or at least slow our retreat from the page – Philippa Perry In this bracing and breezy book, James Marriott explains why the world feels so loud, chaotic and angry – we have lost the reflection and empathy fostered by reading. Put down your phone and read The New Dark Ages – Helen Lewis In this worthy heir to Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, Marriott makes an urgent and compelling case that the death of reading is accelerating and the consequences might prove worse than we feared – Cal Newport Pungent, learned and bang up-to-date… A spirited polemic on one of the most important cultural crises of all. Essential reading – Andrew Marr The New Dark Ages…[is] an essential conversation-start about the imperilled future of reading – Bookseller A heartfelt polemic … Both a lament and celebration – Observer I love James and his bulging brain – Pandora Sykes Simply brilliant and very bracing – India Knight Fascinating … a usefully cautionary contribution – Spectator An excellent book … [James] is a commentator of rare erudition, insight and wit … His bracing argument should be enough to rouse our collective reason from sleep. An outstanding debut – New European Tells the story of what happens when a civilisation that over several centuries came to think through the written word begins, unthinkingly, to lose the capacity to read because the rapid ascendancy of screens … At first blush it is a sweeping thesis, but Marriott sustains his paean to print with panache …. Compelling … Refreshing – The Times [A] thoughtful and forceful book – Mail on Sunday