Product Description

Is it sheer coincidence that the European witch hunts quickly followed the invention of the printing press? In his groundbreaking work The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, Leonard Shlain proposes that the invention of writing, particularly alphabetic writing, rewired the human brain, causing profound cultural changes in history, religion, and gender relations. While the advent of literacy brought innumerable benefits to society, the switch to left-brain thinking upset the balance between men and women. The rise of male dominance led to a corresponding decline in goddess veneration and the status of women. Ending on a positive note, Shlain notes that the return of an image-oriented culture – through the media of photography, film, television, and the Internet – has brought about a sharp rise in the feminine values denigrated during the 5,000-year reign of patriarchy and literacy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #81023 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Amazon.com
"Literacy has promoted the subjugation of women by men throughout all but the very recent history of the West," writes Leonard Shlain. "Misogyny and patriarchy rise and fall with the fortunes of the alphabetic written word."

That's a pretty audacious claim, one that The Alphabet Versus the Goddess provides extensive historical and cultural correlations to support. Shlain's thesis takes readers from the evolutionary steps that distinguish the human brain from that of the primates to the development of the Internet. The very act of learning written language, he argues, exercises the human brain's left hemisphere--the half that handles linear, abstract thought--and enforces its dominance over the right hemisphere, which thinks holistically and visually. If you accept the idea that linear abstraction is a masculine trait, and that holistic visualization is feminine, the rest of the theory falls into place. The flip side is that as visual orientation returns to prominence within society through film, television, and cyberspace, the status of women increases, soon to return to the equilibrium of the earliest human cultures. Shlain wisely presents this view of history as plausible rather than definite, but whether you agree with his wide-ranging speculations or not, he provides readers eager to "understand it all" with much to consider. --Ron Hogan

From Library Journal
The advantages of a literate society are self-evident, but is there a dark side to language? In this extraordinary book, Shlain, a surgeon and the author of Art and Physics (LJ 9/1/91), argues that when cultures acquire literacy, the brain's left hemisphere dominates the right?with enormous consequences. Alphabetic writing, Shlain believes, "subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook" at the expense of feminine values. Focusing on Western cultures, Shlain surveys world history and religion to illustrate how alphabet literacy fosters extremes of intolerance. Indeed, a subtheme of the book is that overreliance on the left hemisphere "initially leads a society through a period of demonstrable madness." Such aberrations as group suicide, religious persecution, and witch-hunting are the result of a dominant linear, reductionist, and abstract method of perception. While admitting that "correlation does not prove causality," Shlain presents a forceful case based on a wealth of circumstantial evidence. An absorbing, provocative, and, ironically, highly literate work that should receive considerable review attention; recommended for most public and academic libraries.?Laurie Bartolini, MacMurray Coll. Lib., Springfield, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Card catalog description
Making remarkable connections across a wide range of subjects including brain anatomy and function, anthropology, history, and religion, Shlain argues that, with the advent of literacy, the very act of reading an alphabet reinforced the brain's left hemisphere - linear, abstract, predominantly masculine at the expense of the right holistic, concrete, visual, feminine. This shift upset the balance between men and women, and initiated the disappearance of goddesses, the abhorrence of images, the decline of women's social and political status, and a long reign of patriarchy and misogyny. The Alphabet Versus the Goddess tracks the correlations between the rise and fall of literacy and the changing status of women in society, mythology, and religion throughout European history, and in other cultures as well. Shlain goes on to describe a colossal shift he calls the iconic revolution, now under way, that began in the nineteenth century: the return of the image. The invention of photography and the discovery of electromagnetism have brought us film, television, video, computers, advertising, graphics - and a shift from the dominance of the left hemisphere to reassertion of the right. Image information has gradually been superseding print information, and in the resulting social revolution women have benefited as society shifts to embrace feminine values.

Customer Reviews

great read but I'm not completely convinced
I enjoyed this book a lot - it's very well written and I admire the breath of research the author brings to his case, and the massive range he covers. There's no doubt that the great transition he talks about is real. What I'm not completely convicined about, however, is his suggested reasons for this transition. I don't think literacy was a significant enough factor to account for it, especially when throughout recorded history (until very recent times) only a tiny number of people were literate. Steve Taylor's excellent book The Fall covers similar ground from a different perspective and puts forward a more convincing case for a deep rooted psychological shift which he calls the Ego Explosion. The Fall: The Evidence for a Golden Age, 6,000 years of Insanity and the Dawning of a New Era

The Alphabet vs. The Goddess
A couple of years ago, during a religious conversation with my daughter, I asked (somewhat plaintively) "What the hell ever happened to God the Mother?!" She smiled and walked over to her bookcase and brought back two books. One was "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" and the other was "The Alphabet vs. The Goddess." Together they changed my thinking about a lot of things. Of course I had a little trouble adjusting to being joined at the hip with the Oxford Dictionery! I wish the fathers of the Church would give as much thought to this book as they do the writings of Augustine

first read understanding media
Shlain's work was informed by Marchall Mcluhan. Read Understanding Media first (and related works) and you'll appreciate the truth of Shlain's insights re printing, reading, writing and technology. Gutenberg changed EVERYTHING. Hot vs Cool, Linear vs holistic. The power of myth and its demise. What Slain has done is include his knowledge of the brain & gender roles to an established construct. And please do read WAlker's "Women's Book of Myths and Secrets" to get a more thorough understanding of how patriarchal cultures (Greek Roman Hebrew) and the Catholic religion have savaged, usurpeed and manipulated early Pagan cultures to their own imperial purpose.