Synopses & Reviews
On the survival and destruction of knowledge, from Alexandria to the Internet. Through the ages, libraries have not only accumulated and preserved but also shaped, inspired, and obliterated knowledge. Matthew Battles, a rare books librarian and a gifted narrator, takes us on a spirited foray from Boston to Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries, from the Vatican to the British Library, from socialist reading rooms and rural home libraries to the Information Age. He explores how libraries are built and how they are destroyed, from the decay of the great Alexandrian library to scroll burnings in ancient China to the destruction of Aztec books by the Spanishand in our own time, the burning of libraries in Europe and Bosnia. Encyclopedic in its breadth and novelistic in its telling, this volume will occupy a treasured place on the bookshelf next to Baker's Double Fold, Basbanes's A Gentle Madness, Manguel's A History of Reading, and Winchester's The Professor and the Madman. 11 b/w illustrations.
Synopsis
Battles, a rare books librarian and a gifted narrator, takes readers on a spirited foray from Boston to Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries, from the Vatican to the British Library, and explores how libraries are built and how they are destroyed.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [215]-227) and index.
About the Author
Matthew Battles works at the Houghton Library, the rare books library at Harvard University, and is a contributor to Harper's. He lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
Table of 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.