
In Our Time: The Written World
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Narrated by:
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Melvyn Bragg
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By:
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Melvyn Bragg
About this listen
Broadcaster and arts presenter Melvyn Bragg fronts The Written World, a five-part BBC Radio 4 series following the origins of writing from its first appearance 6,000 years ago and exploring how it has shaped the world's intellectual history. In the first programme, he looks at the technology of writing, and how making signs on clay, wood, or parchment enabled the development of human culture.
The second programme sees Bragg considering the impact of the invention of the book and examining one of the earliest surviving examples. The third programme examines the role of writing in the spread of religions, and the fourth programme looks at how the invention of writing made it possible to record history and how oral poetry traditions were transformed into the new medium of literature.
Bragg concludes his survey of the written word by considering how the invention of writing made the scientific revolution of the Englightenment possible.
©2012 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2012 BBC Studios Distribution LtdListeners also enjoyed...
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-
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- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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By: Melvyn Bragg
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At Home
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- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.”
-
-
Bryson does it again
- By Robert on 10-15-10
By: Bill Bryson
-
Neither Here nor There
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Neither Here nor There Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia.
-
-
Authentic Bryson, but that might be the problem
- By M. Craft on 08-12-14
By: Bill Bryson
-
The Leo Tolstoy BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Full-Cast Dramatisations of War and Peace, Anna Karenina & More
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale, Amanda Redman, Emily Mortimer, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 35 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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What did you love best about In Our Time: The Written World?
The interaction with subject experts across the broad sweep of history covered makes this a very interesting as well as entertaining book.What did you like best about this story?
The tracking of writing through its impacts down the centuries was a very good way to tell this story.Enjoyable and informative audio book
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