Writing, the subject of much innovative scholarship in recent years, is only one half of what we call literacy. The other half, reading, now finally receives its due in these groundbreaking essays by a distinguished group of anthropologists and literary scholars. The authors challenge the still-prevalent notion that societies "progress" along a universal sequence from orality, or preliteracy, to literacy. Almost all the contributions focus on the fact that orality and textuality, far from being opposite ends of a continuum, interact in complex, multidirectional ways. The reading situations described here range from Anglo-Saxon England to contemporary Indonesia, and from ancient Israel to the Kashaya Pomo Indian reservation. Some essays investigate what reading is in exotically cross-cultural contexts, while others demonstrate that in certain Western contexts reading is still very much a social activity. Some analyze the long historical transition from reading as a collective, oral practice in the West to the private, silent one it is regarded as today. Filled with insights that enhance our understanding of "literacy," this collection offers new perspectives for readers in anthropology, literature, history, and philosophy, as well as in religious, gender, and cultural studies.