Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes Book

I found The Writing Revolution to be well-written, informative, accessible, and entertaining. The author does an excellent job of neither expecting the reader to be familiar with linguistic terminology nor shying away from its use when appropriate (after explaining it in an accessible but not pedantic or condescending way).
For me, personally, much of the content was familiar to some degree. Nevertheless, I found the writing style made even the most familiar things fresh and drew from them new insight. I was particularly impressed by the way that specific changes or moments of history were shown to be indicative of larger trends, and the way that scripts we see and work with every day were reevaluated to linguistic and comparative standards.

I found the author's style to be witty and perspicacious while simultaneously frank and informative. Only very seldom did I feel that any topic was discussed at excessive length, and equally seldom did I encounter mistakes or unnatural phrasing (not counted among these the repeated appearance of "to be proved," which although very unnatural to my ears [or shall I say eyes?] is, in fact, correct). The book certainly had a polished and complete feel.

Lamentably, the book already feels quite dated due to the rapid progression of technology in the years following its publishing. Particularly betraying are its references to "instant messaging" and the absence of references to now-pervasive social media, be it Facebook, Twitter, or Wikipedia. If a new edition of this book is ever to be published (for example, if breakthroughs should occur in the deciphering of Linear A or astonishing new evidence should radically alter the way the history of writing is perceived) then I am eager to discover the author's take on these and how they fit in the greater picture of writing.

All in all, greatly enjoyed and highly recommended. Excellent for anyone without significant prior knowledge of the topic but also valuable for anyone for whom the topic is familiar. Five stars!