The New Dark Ages : The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society

Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Publish date: 7 May 2026
Pages: 128
Language: English

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines, Literacy, Reading Skills, Political Science, Public Policy, Cultural Policy, Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Popular Culture, Media Studies

Books are dying. Across the world the number of people reading is in free fall. Literacy is declining or stagnating in most developed countries. At universities, students are unable to read the books assigned to them by their teachers. Addictive digital entertainment technologies have colonised our free time with infantilising 'slop'. The golden chain of knowledge linking reader to reader through the centuries is breaking for the first time since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire ushered in the Dark Ages.

The New Dark Ages is an impassioned attack on the trivial and meaningless culture of the screen and a defence of the written word. Drawing on history and classic works of literature and theory, The New Dark Ages argues that reading and writing are essential for innovation, creativity and critical thinking.

Above all, the culture of print is essential to the functioning of modern democracies which require their citizens to grapple with ideas at length and in depth. And as print dies, we risk returning to the chaos, tribalism, and rage of a pre-literate society.