Fernando Baez Book Review The First Books of Humanity, the World before the Imprint and the Electronic Book (2015).(Work in progress)

Fernando Baez

The First Books of Humanity, the World before the Imprint and the Electronic Book (2015).

So it's no secret that I love books, from one-shot comic books to monster sized Charles Zorgbibe "History of International Relations", and that I have a hard time with Electronic Books, I just do not have the same experience with E-books, you can't underline them write notes on the margins the same way you can to a physical books, that over time and use, they start acquiring their own personality, and that form part of a collection that I take pride in. 
Now my love for books and reading in general, actually comes from the fact that I suffer dyslexia and dysgraphia, so when I was a kid I had a very hard time learning how to read and write, and this helped me appreciate the written word. And in a word where traditional books are slowly becoming obscure, bookstores closing and written text being so Ubiquitous in its electronic form, over time I have gotten the feeling that people are starting to take for granted something that for our ancestors it was so important it had to be protected by gods, and this book bring that into perspective, Fernando Baez bring us a fantastic book that truly illustrates how man struggled to basically maintain his memory using this fantastic tool. So I bring you guys my review, highlights and a little analysis to this fascinating book about books.

Note: Before I begin, I didn't know this book is part of a larger body of work, and I recommend to you guys to read his earlier books before reading this one.

Central Thymes and Concepts ( Note I'm only going to give you guys a little peep from the first chapters because I'll be working with this book on other posts like in the history of Islam and Christianity):

• The formation of cities and empires, meaning the integration of large amounts of individuals under a political system y with deferent social castes and classes, is parallel to the evolution of writing..... This is a fascinating observation by the author that there is relation between books and concentration of power, the capacity of reading and writing gave power to the bearers, and the higher classes wasted no time in monopolizing it access concentrating power.
• Books are an extension of our memories, the author describes them as memory technology.
  The author points out something fascinating that the invention of writing and book evolved independently all over the globe, it's a convergent cultural evolution, but I most note not universal no all societies created the context for the birth of the book, the author omits this point.
  • Information was passed to one generation to another through spoken word, to maintain social classes, myths, legends or information about the spiritual world. This form of transmission  of information obviously had its limitations but it worked for early humans, but in the early phases of the agricultural revolution  there was a push for the technical support, a need to register information which paved the way for the birth of the first books, I can add that the Book were a type of spandrel that evolved to satisfy one need but came in handy for something else that evolved over the years like artistic expression for example. 
    • In many languages the word write or writing comes from the word painting, one of the first forms of transmitting information and art, the author doesn't explore this transition but I guess that's more of an anthropological study. 
    • Sumerian writing appeared as an administrative tool, based on the need for hard data on the state of one's economy, they were written on clay tablets, balls, cones, triangles... Basically satisfied immediately the need to register amounts, so numbers appeared to be able to count deferent animals and cereals, so from pictograms or ideograms evolved into written numbers and latter letter. This first type of writing was called cuneiform, and in the beginning, it surged for the purpose to backup our memory. Now I'm going to use an interesting example to illustrate the authors point in this little section, I have a good friend that is Illiterate, he doesn't knowhow to read or write, he has a bakery and when he sales started to grow he actually created his own form of primitive writing and register things in books and basically for the same reason thousands of years ago the Sumerian did, the need to manage an economy.
      • Early writing wasn't interested in regressing historical events,  but just to registered the basic day to day lives of the people, so Baez presents us some early texts that are like looking glasses into the life of the past.
        • There was a need to simplified the symbols used, and the Phoenicians came up with the first alphabet in 1060  b.C.
        • Its very interesting how the author starts telling the story of the first goddess dedicated to writing Nisaba, who is responsible for clandestinely creating cuneiform writing, laws and cereals. Then some time latter the Babylonians created Nabu who created books and was sacred deity because he had the book of destiny, and joined forces with two other gods Enki  Nudimmud,  the god of memory and Marduk, god wisdom, forming the triad of truth.  
          • The first epic stories started to appear in Sumerian culture, like Lugalbanda I and II, the Poem of Gilgamesh and the Instructions of Shuruppak, the kings of Uruk served as inspiration, the first king Enmerkar, second Lugalbanda and Third Gilgamesh became legends in Mesopotamia. The epic poem of Lugalbanda is dated 2600 b.C. Now what pushed the Sumerians to start to register the stories and poems, nostalgia, shock being confronted with a changing city and a changing world life wasn't that simple any more, from my point of view possibly some traditions were being lost or forgotten so these people found the need to immortalize these stories that help them cope with their lives, pretty much the same reasons that I sit down with my comics.
             
        

The Good stuff about the Book:  

• The Preface is where we find most of the theoretical back bone to the book and is where the author defines the concept of Book, there is no Introduction it just jumps into the Chapters which are 8  and they go sort of in chronological order, explaining how books evolved out of different cultures around the world and on what they were written on.
• This book has many fragments of all kinds of ancient text and  it's pretty mind-blowing to read some of them it's like traveling into the past, discovering how these people think, to see what was their mind set, it seem obvious but one must remind oneself of this aspect to really appreciate the gift that these people have left us.
  •  Many photos of different types of book that has appeared over the years.
  • One can appreciate the hard work the writer has done on this book, it probably took him a long time to write this.
    

    • The level of Investigation for the book is huge Fernando thanks seven libraries for giving him a hand, he references about 430 books and mentions many other investigators that help him.
    • Author take his time to mention there maybe translation issues with Chinese text, while most author would just fly by this issue, this shows this guy is a pro, he also mentions a couple of another thing that maybe issue too.
     
  
  

The Bad: 

• Author jams too much in each chapter, he has issues leaving stuff out.
• I can not find an english edition of this book, so if you don't read in spanish you're going have to find a digital copy and use a translation programme on it, but the book is worth it.
• The book has no conclusion it just ends, not even a couple of pages where the writes  talks about his personal experience of writing this book, or his views on the importance of these  first  historic books to modern society and why we should preserve them,  or about his opinion of the state of books today with their transition to the digital form, maybe use this as a  starting point for a next book, hey I'm trying to be constructive but it feels like lost opportunity.
  
  
  
  
  Overall: 9/10, loved the book
  appreciated the level of investigation and you can tell this book is part of a larger body of work, and this book left pumped and ready to look for Fernando's other books, the issue of no conclusion is the only thing that makes me lower the grade.