Old Books

As an undergraduate at BYU I had to take two semesters on the history of civilization. I chose to take the version taught by the curator of the special collections at the library. Which meant the entire focus of the two semester class was how writings, books, and manuscripts, had shaped the history of the world. Most versions of the class divided the two semesters at 1500. My class was divided at 1450 because that was the year Gutenberg published the bible (BBC News has a pretty good clip about the Gutenberg Bible and the importance of other early writings), the first use in the Western world of moveable type.

I remember taking the final for the second semester, needing two blue books and, after answering several short answer/essay type questions, being asked to name the major writers for each century since 1450 and how their works had shaped the world. Narrowing that down was hard. After three solid hours of writing I left that test and was unable to really straighten my right arm or spread out the fingers on my right hand for a good while after. I’d been holding my pencil and writing, about writings, nonstop.

Writing. Words. They are powerful. They have changed the world. Writing connects us across time and space. We can have conversations with the past as we read what they wrote. We can start conversations with the future as we write.

Imagine what life would be like if there was no writing. How long would cultural memory be? How connected would different locations be? How far would civilization have advanced if we could not write?