Beholderess reviewed Writing on the Wall by Tom Standage
Review of 'Writing on the Wall' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Fascinating account of the ancient roots of the social media - social media being understood as distributed from peer to peer with extensive use of quotation and commentary. The author makes a convincing argument that the centralized media is not the good old days, but rather a relatively recent anomaly.
I would say that the first half of the book, dealing with the ancient media, is stronger than the second one, dealing with the more current forms of media. The account of pre-industrial media is full of amusing snippets of information, while the account of modern media appears to be much more shallow and cursory by comparison.