Overview
From our first ABCs to the Book of Revelation's statement that Jesus is ""the Alpha and Omega,"" we see the world through our letters. More than just a way of writing, the alphabet is a powerful concept that has shaped Western civilization and our daily lives. In The Letter and the Cosmos, Laurence de Looze probes that influence, showing how the alphabet has served as a lens through which we conceptualize the world and how the world, and sometimes the whole cosmos, has been perceived as a kind of alphabet itself. Beginning with the ancient Greeks, he traces the use of alphabetic letters and their significance from Plato to postmodernism, offering a fascinating tour through Western history. A sharp and entertaining examination of how languages, letterforms, orthography, and writing tools have reflected our hidden obsession with the alphabet, The Letter and the Cosmos is illustrated with copious examples of the visual and linguistic phenomena which de Looze describes. Read it, and you'll never look at the alphabet the same way again.
Full Product Details
Author: Laurence de Looze ,
Donald Wright ,
Peter Waite
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.30cm
, Height: 1.80cm
, Length: 22.80cm
Weight: 0.420kg
ISBN: 9781442628533
ISBN 10: 1442628537
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 27 June 2016
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.
Reviews
A sharp and entertaining examination of how languages, letterforms, orthography, and writing tools have reflected our hidden obsession with the alphabet, The Letter and the Cosmos is illustrated with copious examples of the visual and linguistic phenomena which de Looze describes. Read it, and you'll never look at the alphabet the same way again. -- Paul T Vogel Midwest Book Review, August 5, 2016
"""A sharp and entertaining examination of how languages, letterforms, orthography, and writing tools have reflected our hidden obsession with the alphabet, ""The Letter and the Cosmos"" is illustrated with copious examples of the visual and linguistic phenomena which de Looze describes. Read it, and you'll never look at the alphabet the same way again."" -- Paul T Vogel Midwest Book Review, August 5, 2016"
Author Information
Laurence de Looze is a professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Western Ontario.
