The Alphabet Versus the Goddess
The Conflict Between Word and Image

Dr. Leonard Shlain has an idee fixe (or in more colloquial – and colourful – terms, a “bee in his bonnet”). It is this: alphabet literacy is the cause of misogyny among humanity. He spends 400+ pages of the current book, The Alphabet vs. the Goddess , trying to convince us of this path-breaking, exp......more

Ok, for bibliophiles, this book is like being told that the parents you've admired and cherished and emulated for so long were drunken, abusive, misanthropes. But if you tough it out, accept the possibility that this habit, this passion that keeps making life worth living, has had possible side-effec......more

Imagine that you have a rich friend whose Saint Bernard ate a solid gold ring. The friend tells you that you can have the ring if you are willing to go through the dog's poop to get it. That's what this book is like, something valuable within a big pile of crap. It begins along these lines: early hum......more

Really interesting, enlightening theory on literacy's influence on brain development and sexism. Makes a lot of sense, an easy, very interesting read. Explains why non-literate cultures were goddess worshipping and more egalitarian. Literacy sparks a shift in society to a dominant Left brain, result......more

Here is a book which -- according to the number of 1- or 2-star reviews on the first page -- roughly 75% of its readers will be predisposed to agree with upon picking it up. The other 25% will more or less reject its central premise out of hand. I am among the 75% who accept Shlain's hypothesis that......more