tribalism; and why print causes price systems and markets 
such as cannot exist without print. In short, Harold Innis was 
the first person to hit upon the process  of change as implicit in 
the forms  of media technology. The present book is a footnote 
of explanation to his work.

     Diringer is emphatic about only one thing concerning the 
alphabet. No matter how or when it was achieved:

          At any rate, it must be said that the great 
     achievement of the invention was not the creation of the 
     signs . It lies in the adoption of a purely alphabetic 
     system, which, moreover, denoted each sound by one 
     sign only. For this achievement, simple as it now seems to 
     us, the inventor, or the inventors are to be ranked among 
     the greatest benefactors of mankind. No other people in