Symbols

by Joseph Piercy

Symbols: A Universal Language looks at the story behind the world's most famous symbols, from the peace sign to the smiley. It shows just how much importance has been attached to the smallest and simplest of ideas and features over 40 of the most significant symbols from religion, politics and popular culture down the centuries. Did you know that 15 per cent of all tweets on twitter contain the hash tag symbol? That's over 41 million uses of # each day. Or that the 'smiley face' originated in Massachusetts in the 1960s? This fascinating book highlights the roles symbols have played throughout history and how they have shaped our understanding of the world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, History, Education, Linguistics

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Symbols are ubiquitous now, Almost like a modern-day hieroglyph, they are universal and it doesn’t matter what language that you speak they are easily understood.

They have been used for thousands of years too, Piercy begins his book looking at the Palaeolithic art that has been found in caves all over the world. The artworks mentioned in the book were found in a cave in Ardeche, France and were behind a rockfall. These show depictions of various animals and are around 30,000 years old. The Rosetta Stone is his next subject and he explains how this tablet was the key to understanding the hieroglyphs.

Symbols are very important in religion and there are short essays about the symbols used in the three Abrahamic religions, the Cross, the star and crescent and the Star of David. In this second section, he includes the swastika and details how this originally was a symbol of good luck and how it was appropriated by the Nazis and is now rightly much-reviled. Two much nicer symbols are the Smiley and the classic I 🖤 NY and I learnt a little about their history.

Money may not make the world go around, that is physics, but it is an invention that we cannot do without in the modern world. There are short pieces on the £, $ and € and a brief mention of the ¥. There is a brief sojourn into the mathematical world and a little about symbols used to define ownership, © and TM. There are also modern symbols, Bluetooth and WiFi and a little on their creations

There is an interesting essay about how the UK road signs went from being a jumbled mess of all sorts of different fonts and sizes to a super clear and organised system. He also mentions the Tube Map, not really a symbol in my opinion though. I did like the bit on the signs that the hobo’s used in America.

Not a bad little book overall, Piercy has uncovered all sorts of details about the origins of the symbols that he has included. It has a much wider scope than Hyphens and Hashtags which I read recently, but in any book like this it is only ever going to be an overview of the subject rather than an in-depth analysis.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well written introduction to the history of everyday symbols which we see in the modern world. There are some very interesting nuggets of information to be found here, as well as a selection of more anecdotal material connected to a range of the symbols described. My main criticism of the book is that it is light in illustration. There were several times when I thought the text could have been complimented with greater use of images to accompany the descriptions. It seems slightly odd for a book discussing a visual form of communication to be so light on illustrations. However there is a very handy list of further reading contained at the end of the book, to allow anyone interested to continue their exploration of symbols and their place in the world.

[Mosope · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting non fiction

[Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

It earns a second star for the handful of fun pieces of trivia I picked up from it. Aside from those, I am not convinced this was worth reading. The blurb and introduction suggest it's intended to be a hybrid history of symbols & philosophical treatise on them. Neither is accurate.

The first problem was that it never actually defines what it means by a symbol, and the examples given are insanely broad. It counts cave paintings (and if cave paintings count, then surely any representative artform must also count as a symbol). It also discusses the Rosetta stone and Hieroglyphics - but then why not ever other written language? It seems as though 'symbol' in this book means 'whatever the writer feels people usually mean by that', which doesn't really clarify anything.

Similarly, while the background and historical use of some symbols was offered (I found the '&' entry interesting), others didn't actually explain the history or changing uses, or left great gaps unexplained. The ying-yang symbol was notable for this - not even a mention of it's earliest known use, which for a history of symbols seems a big missing piece of information.

The writing was easy enough to read (I finished the book in a couple of hours), so at least it wasn't a time consuming struggle to get through.

[Gareth · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an interesting little read but it felt more like a collection of anecdotes about symbols rather than a structured introduction. There are little gems in there but I didn't find a great deal I didn't already know.

I felt that the book was maybe searching for some sort of structured narrative about how the construction of signs and symbols has changed over time (it is ordered roughly chronologically) but never quite got there.

But... a nice little read so long as you're not expecting too much of it.

[Phil Mc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched and nicely written, this is a low effort read with some fun facts and figures along the way. It also, helpfully, points the way to weightier reading in the subject for those interested in more.

[Roosi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Teos jäi liiga pealiskaudseks, et olla nauditav.

[Harrison Large ラージ • ハリソン · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting, but very brief on each symbol. Most of the histories were common knowledge anyway, although some such as the link between £, libra (pound) and lb. I must admit were interesting.

[Karla · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a light read on the pool deck this afternoon. Not as deep as I thought it would be but insightful and informative. Not really recommended, but I'd rather read this than a romance novel.

[Lwin Mar Kyaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

So brief. Two stars for some signs I never thought before.

[Obeida Takriti · Rating 2 out of 5]

توقعت من الكتاب عمقاً أكبر..
إلا أنه يشرح فقط تاريخ بعض الرموز المعاصرة بدون أن يتطرق للقديمة منها أو للفلسفة وراء هذه الرموز..

[Tuesdayschild · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 19yr old son's idea of a lite read for me to enjoy. It was, and I did. It encouraged me to go research Jim Thorpe (A Native American athlete stripped, undeservedly, of his medals.)

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not very diverse and almost all the symbols are daily symbols for technology or religion, rather than anything else.

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 3 out of 5]

90 - 2023

[Mosope · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting non fiction

[Mat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has some interesting anecdotes, but they're merely that. There's little unifying structure. Useful as a reference book.

[Carole Tyrrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever stopped to think what the symbols you see every day actually mean? These days we just register them as visual shorthand and move on. But the stories behind them can be fascinating.
Symbols concentrates on modern symbols especially those related to IT such as # or hashtag. But don’t let this put you off as Piercy has a very readable, easy style and I learned a lot. Several of the symbols featured in this book feel almost as if they’re embedded in a universal consciousness. It’s like they’re always been there such as the Peace sign and the Smiley face. The author’s research on these was particularly thorough.
Other areas covered are road traffic signs and the iconic London Underground map. There’s also a chapter on hoboglyphs which are the marks that hobos in the USA leave behind for their fellow travellers to forewarn them about the household inside. Piercy also reveals how the hobogylphs influenced the character of Don Draper in Mad Men. Until I read this book I had no idea that the @ symbol of the sign with no name had so many different meanings around the world. There’s also a useful bibliography at the back of the book.
Another book I would like to have on my symbol reference shelf.

[Lauren Verity · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the language of this book to be a bit tricky of my understanding, I felt like I had to be an oxford student to understand what was going on in this book most of the time. However, there are some interesting qualities within this book, which I have indulged within my friends and shared which they find quite interesting. This helped me to expand my history and my language, which I always love to do. This was a short and quick read, quick I love, however as I said the language of the book made it tricky to get into however when I did, I found it hard to put down. The adventures and discoveries within this book were adventurous and amazing of their own and helped me to expand my mindset and my horizons. Overall, I recommend this to my intecctual friends I.e. the ones in univiersities, not the ones working in McDonald’s (which is quite a few)😂

[Jody Mena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and informative, though not quite what I expected. Based on the somewhat misleading subtitle "a universal language", I suppose I was expecting something a little more technical and abstract regarding the nature of symbols, how and why we use them, history and philosophy of symbolism across geography and culture, and so on in that vein. There wasn't really much of that at all in this book; there was a short pre-history section, but after that it became more of an encyclopedia of specific, selected symbols, consisting mostly of of anecdotes and trivia, presenting a selected symbol and giving its meaning and history in brief 2-3 page summaries. I might go so far as to recommend it as a "bathroom reader" book, due to the way the book is organized by symbol; yet the writing style was straightforward, easy word choice and sentence structure, very easy to skim, so I was able to read through the whole book in a couple of hours just as well.

Basically, I was a bit disappointed because the subject matter was much more simplistic and limited than I had expected; however, taken for what it is, it was not uninteresting, and I learned some new bits of trivia I had never heard of before. I wouldn't bend over backwards to go out and find it, but if it happens to cross your path, its not a bad read.

[Louise · Rating 1 out of 5]

I loved the idea of this book, but the reality was much different.

The book covered forty or so symbols in the space of just over 200 pages and so was never going to be able to go into much detail with any of them. And while I understand that an encyclopaedia entry should start from scratch when introducing a symbol, I can't imagine any reader needing a page of evidence here for gold being treated as valuable metal. Overall there was a slightly patronising tone that made me wonder whether I'd picked up a children's book.

Oh, and another annoying thing - the # symbol is filed under the name "Octothorpe", despite the most prevalent name being a hash sign or number sign. I suspect that the only reason the Octothorpe term was used was to justify four pages of biography on an athlete who may, or may not, have inspired the term.

But with every book you read, you learn something. In this case, it was the existence of fire insurance marks on buildings, and the subsequent development of the fire brigade. This wasn't enough, though, to justify reading the book.

[Jordan Mosley · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting to learn where the most common symbols came from and how they came into existence. Now, I want to learn about symbology

[Asif Syed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief. Concise. Informative.

[Beeeeee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ideal for reading in short stints on the train due to the very short chapters on different symbols. it was a very interesting but very brief introduction into something that I didn't realise I was interested in until now and I will definitely look into other books which go more in depth on the subject.

for a very easy and short starting point and I would definitely recommend this but there isn't a lot of substance to each of the sections so perhaps if you're not new to the topic this book isn't for you.

[Callum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than the price suggests.

[JP]

Pathetic
Something missing
It was not readable just clumsy
information crowded about every symbol
Not neatly presented
Disappointed!!