| Description |
x, 253 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm |
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text txt rdacontent |
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unmediated n rdamedia |
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volume nc rdacarrier |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-235) and index. |
| Contents |
Reading the library -- Burning Alexandria -- The house of wisdom -- The battle of the books -- Books for all -- Knowledge on fire -- Lost in the stacks -- Afterword. |
| Summary |
From the clay-tablet collections of ancient Mesopotamia to the storied Alexandria libraries in Egypt, from the burned scrolls of China's Qing Dynasty to the book pyres of the Hitler Youth, from the great medieval library in Baghdad to the priceless volumes destroyed in the multi-cultural Bosnian National Library in Sarajevo, the library has been a battleground of competing notions of what books mean to us. Battles explores how, throughout its many changes, the library has served two contradictory impulses: on the one hand, the urge to exalt canons of literature, to secure and worship the best and most beautiful words; on the other, the desire to contain and control all forms of human knowledge. |
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"Through the ages, libraries have not only accumulated and preserved but also shaped, inspired, and obliterated knowledge. Now they are in crisis. Former rare books librarian and Harvard MetaLAB visionary Matthew Battles takes us from Boston to Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries and on to the Information Age, to explore how libraries are built and how they are destroyed: from the scroll burnings in ancient China to the burning of libraries in Europe and Bosnia to the latest revolutionary upheavals of the digital age. A new epilogue elucidates the preservation of knowledge amid the creative destruction of twenty-first century technology."--Publisher's description. |
| Subject |
Libraries -- History.
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Libraries and society -- History.
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Books -- History.
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Libraries -- History.
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Books. (OCoLC)fst00836401
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Libraries. (OCoLC)fst00997341
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Libraries and society. (OCoLC)fst00997566
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| Genre/Form |
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
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| ISBN |
9780393351453 (pbk.) |
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0393351459 (pbk.) |
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0393078620 |
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9780393078626 |
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1448180503 |
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9781448180509 |
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