Great Mosaic Eye
Language & Evolution

By Robin Allott
December 2001
The Book Guild, Ltd.
ISBN: 1-85776-600-8
228 pages
$66.50 hardcover

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The mosaic eye of the dragonfly has 28,000 ommatidia, 28,000 micro-eyes. Throughout humanity we have thousands of millions of eyes looking out on the single world, the single universe. The integrating processes, which in the insect are the result of the organization of its nervous system, are constituted for humans by the development of language, language as a system for externalizing the contents of each individual's brain and, with the invention of writing, enabling information to be transmitted over time as well as over space. The central force operating in the evolution of human culture has been language and all forms of communication derived from language. This is the central theme of this fascinating book by Robin Allott, who explores language's role in evolution, and vice versa.

Includes CD-ROM.

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