The death of reading

We are away for Christmas, so this is a repeat of a previous episode.

Are we living through the slow death of reading - replaced by an addictive screen culture that fragments our attention and floods us with trivial or unreliable information? Writer and voracious reader James Marriott believes we are entering a post-literate age with profoundly negative consequences for education, culture and democracy itself. In today's episode, James traces how an 18th century ‘reading revolution’ shaped the modern-world - and what might follow its sudden decline.

Producers: Aron Keller and Sam Chantarasak

Editor: James Shield

Mix: Travis Evans

Senior news editor: China Collins

Photo: The al-Nahda al-Arabiya library (Arab Renaissance Library) in central Baghdad. AHMED JALIL/EPA.