The New Dark Ages

The world we knew is passing away and nothing will ever be the same again.

Welcome to the post-literate society.

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. Addictive digital entertainment technologies have colonised our free time with infantilising ‘slop’. For the first time since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire ushered in the Dark Ages, the golden chain of knowledge linking reader to reader through the centuries is breaking.

The decline in reading is the most important cultural shift of our time.

The New Dark Ages is an impassioned defence of the written word and an attack on the trivial and meaningless culture of the screen. 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.

© James Marriott 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026