This book asks what will happen to thought and communication as written communication gives way, inevitably, to digital expression. In the introduction, it proposes that writing does not, in fact, have a future because everything that is now conveyed in writing—and much that cannot be—can be recorded and transmitted by other means. The balance of this book teases out the nuances of these developments. To find a common denominator among texts and practices that span millennia, the book looks back to the earliest forms of writing and forward to the digitization of texts now under way. For this b ... More This book asks what will happen to thought and communication as written communication gives way, inevitably, to digital expression. In the introduction, it proposes that writing does not, in fact, have a future because everything that is now conveyed in writing—and much that cannot be—can be recorded and transmitted by other means. The balance of this book teases out the nuances of these developments. To find a common denominator among texts and practices that span millennia, the book looks back to the earliest forms of writing and forward to the digitization of texts now under way. For this book, writing—despite its limitations when compared to digital media—underpins historical consciousness, the concept of progress, and the nature of critical inquiry. While the text as a cultural form may ultimately become superfluous, it argues, the art of writing will not so much disappear but rather evolve into new kinds of thought and expression.