Contents: Introduction. Literacy in a changing world -- Book I. The chasm between yesterday and tomorrow -- The epitome of the civilization of illiteracy -- Book II. From signs to language -- From orality to writing -- Orality and writing today: what do people understand when they understand language? -- The functioning of language -- Language and logic -- Book III. Language as mediating mechanism -- Literacy, language and market -- Language and work -- Literacy and education -- Book IV. Language and the visual -- Unbounded sexuality -- Family: discovering the primitive future -- A God for each of us -- A mouthful of mircrowave diet -- The professional winner --Science and philosophy-more questions -- Art(ifacts) and aesthetic processes -- Libraries, books and readers -- The sense of design -- Politics: There was never so much beginning -- Theirs not to reason why -- Contents: Book V. The interactive future: individual, community, and society in the age of the web -- A sense of the future.