Voice Over of "Proust and the Squid" by Maryanne Wolf

Reading is a recent invention that has altered our brain's organization and expanded our thinking abilities. It is one of the most remarkable inventions in history and allows us to record history. The human brain's ability to make new connections and be shaped by experience is what makes reading possible. This plasticity is fundamental to our identity and potential. We were never born to read. Human beings invented reading only a few thousand years ago. And with this invention, we rearranged the very organization of our brain, which in turn expanded the ways we were able to think, which altered the intellectual evolution of our species. Reading is one of the single most remarkable inventions in history. The ability to record history is one of its consequences. Our ancestors' invention could come about only because of the human brain's extraordinary ability to make new connections among its existing structures. A process made possible by the brain's ability to be shaped by experience. This plasticity at the heart of the brain's design forms the basis for much of who we are and who we might become.