The New Dark Ages

The evidence is clear—we are now entering a post-literate society. In this urgent and timely account, James Marriott shows the potential impact of this shift and offers a passionate defense of the written word.

It’s not by chance that the rise of new printing technologies coincided with the age of revolutions and the decline of the aristocratic order. At the beginning of the modern era in Europe, a critical mass of people could share and debate ideas about individual rights, the purpose of government and scientific truth. With growing literacy came the world we recognize today.

Now, around the world, the number of peo­ple who read is in free fall. Literacy is declining or stagnating in most developed countries. Univer­sity students struggle mightily to read the books assigned in their classes. The golden chain of knowledge linking reader to reader through the centuries is breaking. Here, London Times col­umnist James Marriott argues that this—the New Dark Ages—is the most important cultural shift of our time. The age of print is giving way to the age of the screen. The world we knew is passing away and nothing will ever be the same again.

In this trenchant critique, Marriott assails the culture of modern life and singles out the written word as the best defense we have for a more en­lightened world. Provocative and enthralling, The New Dark Ages argues that reading and writing are essential for innovation, creativity and complex thought. Above all, the culture of print is critical to the functioning of modern democracies, which re­quire their citizens to grapple with ideas at length and in depth. As print dies, we risk returning to the chaos, tribalism and rage of the world before widespread literacy.