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Blueprints and Borrowed Letters

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 5:21 am
by heledd
One of the things I do like about this book is that its got pictures and diagrams! It's ages since I last read a book with pictures!!
One of the things that annoy me about the book is his tendency to be well, not quite correct. He asks on page 216 '. . .today almost all Japanese and Scandinavians are literate but most Iraquis are not: why did writing nevertheless arise nearly four thousand years earlier in Iraq?' Well ok he finished the book in 1988, but in 1995 literacy in Iraq was 58%, rising to 74% in 2000 and dropping to 40% in 2003 (after sanctions and the beginning of the war).
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=iz&v=39

Re: Blueprints and Borrowed Letters

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 5:43 am
by heledd
And on page 237 he again claims that West Africa did not acquire writing because of the difficult terrain between there and North Africa. But he has already said that writing existed in Ethiopia, which is in sub-saharan Africa, on the east coast. If Ethiopia had a writing system, and the kingdoms to the west on a similar latitude did not adopt or adapt it, in spite of trade routes, then there must be another reason. I also find it difficult to accept his view of linear progress, trade, as in the case of North and West Africa, is often circular. Slaves, gold, ivory, being exchanged for salt, horses, etc.