Table of Contents

The alphabet in context; origins and historians; the alphabet in classical history; gnoticism, hermeticism, neo-platonism and neo-pythagoreanism - the alphabet in the hellenistic and early Christian era; calligraphy, alchemy and "ars combinatoria" in the medieval period; the Kabbalah; rationalizing the alphabet - construction, real character and philosophical languages in the renaissance; the social contract, primitivism and nationalism - the alphabet in the 18th century; the alphabet in the 19th century - advertising , visible speech and narratives of history; 20th century - eclecticism, technology and the idiosyncratic imagination.