Literacy and Writing: Ideology in Practice

Four recent books deal with the origins of early writing systems, the implications of texts and artifacts on the development of cognitive process and social practice, and the importance of textual artifacts for cultural cohesion and attendant issues of power and identity. This review draws out the interrelation of writing and speech, the conceptualization of literacy as singular and autonomous or multiple and ideological, and where and how to place forms of visual communication within the paradigm of "literacy.''