Mark Sunderman

“As populations grow beyond Dunbar’s number, face-to-face contact no longer suffices to maintain political control. At this point, writing supplies the best mechanism for communicating among large numbers of people, and power naturally accrues to the literate. Consequently, societies with high rates of literacy, such as Athens, tend to have more smoothly running republics than those with low rates, such as the late Roman one.”
― William J. Bernstein, Masters of the Word: How Media Shaped History from the Alphabet to the Internet

“The Story of the Telegraph and a History of the Great Atlantic Cable, in which they breathlessly proclaimed, How potent a power, then, is the telegraphic destined to become in the civilization of the world! This binds together by a vital cord all the nations of the earth. It is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for an exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth.46”
― William J. Bernstein, Masters of the Word: How Media Shaped History from the Alphabet to the Internet

“In the early fifth century BC, a roll of papyrus, consisting of about twenty sheets, cost between one and three drachmas—that is, one to three days’ wages for a semiskilled worker.”
― William J. Bernstein, Masters of the Word: How Media Shaped History from the Alphabet to the Internet

“A curious Roman “literacy triangle” centered on three groups: the legions, easily the most literate mass institution in the late Republic; the Christians; and most bizarrely, the slaves—particularly Greek slaves—who did much of Rome’s writing, and even its reading.”
― William J. Bernstein, Masters of the Word: How Media Shaped History from the Alphabet to the Internet