Writing has been with us for several thousand years, and nowadays is more important than ever. Having spread steadily over the centuries from clay tablets to computer chips, it is poised for further dramatic advances. Although hundreds of millions of people are still unable to read and write, humanity relies on writing to an unprecedented extent. It is quite possible that, today, more communication takes place in the written than in the oral mode. There is no objective measure, but if there were any doubts, the Internet explosion has laid to rest the idea that for the human race at large writing is only a ‘minor’ form of communication. It is not risky to call writing the single most consequential technology ever invented. The immensity of written record and the knowledge conserved in libraries, data banks, and multilayered information networks make it difficult to imagine an aspect of modern life unaffected by writing. ‘Access’, the catchword of the knowledge society, means access to written intelligence. Writing not only offers ways of reclaiming the past, but is a critical skill for shaping the future. In Stanley Kubrick's 1968 motion picture ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ a computer equipped with a perfect speech recognition programme, which is even able to lipread, threatens to overpower the human crew. This is still science fiction.