Author Description

This book is part of an activity-based series entitled "Exploring the Past". It is a series which promotes an investigative approach to history and encourages children to explore the past through what they can see or find out from their surroundings. The reader is told how to gather information and how to use it in a positive and constructive manner. This illustrated volume looks at different communications, their origins, uses, development and their place in our local environment. It begins by pointing out the role of communications in the reader's everyday life. As the history of communication is unfolded, television, radio, radar, telegraph, telephones, films and records are all discussed (including the way in which each relates to the reader's own experience and that of their parents and grandparents) and what can be seen of them in the local environment. Working back from the present, the author looks at the development of the postal service, the growth of the first newspapers, the origins and development of printing and the production of books in the Middle Ages. Ways of communicating without words (such as using signs or symbols) and early methods of communication such as hill figures, cave paintings and Ogam stones are also taken into consideration. Finally, there are suggestions and guidelines for researching, preparing and producing a communication project. The text is complemented by a glossary, a further reading list and an index. Cliff Lines is the author of several titles in Wayland's "Young Explorers" series and co-author of all the titles in the "Town and Cities" series.