The Story of the Alphabet

The book offers a compact yet vivid tour through the birth of written language, beginning with the earliest picture‑marks that helped our ancestors remember myths and harvests. It walks the listener through Egyptian hieroglyphs, the flowing brushstrokes of Chinese scripts, and the clever knots of early Near‑Eastern cuneiform, showing how each system gradually shifted from images to sounds. Bright, ninety‑something illustrations appear at every turn, turning abstract concepts into something you can picture in your mind’s eye.

The author weaves recent archaeological findings—especially the groundbreaking tablets uncovered by Flinders Petrie and Arthur Evans—into a clear narrative that avoids dense footnotes while still respecting scholarly depth. Readers learn how the Phoenician alphabet spread across the Mediterranean, giving rise to Greek letters, runic carvings, and eventually the familiar A‑Z that underpins modern communication. Ideal for anyone curious about how a simple set of symbols grew into humanity’s most powerful tool, the story is both informative and delightfully visual.