Literacy in the classical world

Upvote:2

A reference to check out is Carlo Cipolla: Literacy and Development in the West. I don't have it right here, and can't find an online version (it's a book from 1969) but found a review here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3786234 which quotes:

By 1750 at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, almost 5000 years had elapsed since the first rudimentary appearance of the art of writing. Yet more than 90 percent of the world's population had no access to this art.

There are many more numbers for specific societies in the book. Of course, the methods used will be open to challenge. Another approach would be to look at todays' worst-off countries and posit that it was even lower in all countries a long time ago; for example, the CIA World Factbook gives a literacy rate for Afghanistan in 2000 at 28.1%.

Jørgen 2101

📝 Are there any historical accounts of Aisha (the wife of Muhammad) giving public speeches?
📝 Was the US Army during the WW2 Western Front a motorized army, a mechanized army, or neither?
📝 Australian Head of State
📝 "Ridiculous" military haircut in Spanish California
📝 What was the significance of changing the name of "Persia" to "Iran"?
📝 How did communist authorities decide who is "German" and who is "Polish" when expelling Germans from recovered territories?
📝 In what language did Caractacus deliver his speech to the emperor Claudius?
📝 Newton a plagiarist?
📝 Did James Monroe and James Madison ever disagree?
📝 What factors related to the Eastern Crisis contributed to the outbreak of World War 1?
📝 What was it like for German Jews after WWII?
📝 Was Eumenes really a non Greek by birth?
📝 What machine technology did the Egyptians have to build the great pyramids?
📝 How were laws promulgated in the Middle Ages?
📝 Who was the first foreigner to be naturalized as a Mexican citizen in Alta California?
📝 How did early farmer societies "know" about protein contents of peas and lentils?
📝 Are there pictures expressing anti-occupation sentiment directed at British Forces in Germany before 1990?
📝 "Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin."
📝 What is the single longest Presidential Campaign run in the United States?
📝 How many Romans would use an average-sized balneum every day?
📝 Why were the continuity states of Imperial and Royal Austria-Hungary disunited, while the continuity states of Imperial Russia were united?
📝 How did the maximum strengths of alcoholic beverages in Western Europe increase from wine which Romans watered to 80 proof to absinthe?
📝 When and why did garum disappear?
📝 What was the price of going from England to New England as a passenger in the 1600s?
📝 What were the crime rates In the American Old West?
📝 What treatment did Allied Jewish POWs get when captured by the Germans?
📝 Matchsticks were invented in 1805 . How did humans get fire in everyday lives before then?
📝 What are the main reasons historians give for the Soviet Union's collapse?
📝 What are exceptions to the hypothesis that "climate determined "regional" loyalties in the U.S. Civil War"?
📝 What evidence is there for inventions by slaves or former slaves in Ancient Rome?

Source: stackoverflow.com

Travel Tips

Search Posts

📝 Literacy in the classical world
📝 How widespread was literacy in classical Greek in Europe during the medieval period?
📝 Why didn't Imperial Japan attack the Soviet Union during World War 2?
📝 Why didn’t Japan attack the West Coast of the United States during World War II?
📝 What are the factors that caused the new world civilizations to be less technologically advanced than the old world?
📝 Why was World War I ended on Nov 11 11:00, rather than immediately upon signing the armistice?
📝 How did such a relatively minor event as the assassination of an archduke start World War I?
📝 Did the Soviets excel in one area of weaponry during World War II?
📝 How did the Nazis plan to defeat America during World War II?
📝 Why did China shut itself out of the world in the 15th century?
📝 What is the oldest building in the world still in use?
📝 What did Germany do in World War II about the different rail gauge in the Soviet Union?
📝 Why did the German army execute so few soldiers in World War I compared to most other armies?
📝 Why did Chamberlain act to appease Hitler leading up to the outbreak of World War 2?
📝 What was the reason for Soviet troops to withdraw from Yugoslavia in World War II?
📝 Has there ever been a major migration from the New World to the Old World? If not, why?
📝 Why was Switzerland not attacked during the two World Wars?
📝 How did the ruling class in the Muslim world react to the discovery and colonization of the Americas?
📝 Is it true that there are more slaves in the world now than ever at one point in history?
📝 What was the longest a World War II submarine stayed at sea without being resupplied at a port?
📝 How did the gold of the new world cause the Spanish Empire to collapse?
📝 Why does the US use the opposite convention to the rest of the world for colour-coding harbour buoys?
📝 What tactical situations made the use of traditional horse cavalry effective in World War II?
📝 What was the strategy to protect the British Museum during the World Wars?
📝 Why did the United States enter World War I?
📝 Why did the Soviet Union not "grant" Inner Mongolia to Mongolia after World War Two?
📝 What were the post World War 2 effects on Germany?
📝 What was the ratio women to men after World War 2 in the Soviet Union
📝 Why was the Western Front so static in World War I?
📝 "More Frenchmen bore arms for the Axis than for the Allies during the Second World War"?

Literacy in the classical world

More post

Search Posts

Related post