Writing is the greatest trick that humans ever came up with. Not only is it symbolic communication, but it allows for the communication to be saved and reused without alteration. This was the great leap forward for human civilization if for no other reason then it allowed for math to be transmitted over time. Since the development of writing the drive has been to mass reproduction and maximum portability.

Links

• Time-Table : A short time-line of the development of writing, printing, and western literary history.
• Wikipedia : Entry on writing from a free encyclypedia.
• The Guttenburg Project : This is a fine collection of public domain works ebooks for research and reading.