Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"Matthew Battles knows his way around the stacks as well as anyone. . . . This book is a delight." Nicholas Basbanes
Review
"Huge in scope . . . engaging." BookPage
Review
"A must for every home or institutional collection." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Elegantly written....A great read, flowing over many time periods and geographic regions." Library Journal
Review
"Battles' sprightly narrative performs a valuable service by blowing the dust off our stodgy, conventional conception of the library to reveal the living heart of cultures that beats beneath its stone facade." Los Angeles Times Book Review
Review
"Battles turns an all-seeing telescope on the most spectacular galaxy in our intellectual heavens--that magnificent constellation of books we call a library--and brings into focus the brightest stars and blackest holes in its dynamic history." Richard Lederer, author of A Man of My Words
Synopsis
"Engrossingly saturated with fascinating lore, colorful anecdotes and deft portraits."--Hilarie M. Sheets,
About the Author
Matthew Battles is the author of Library: An Unquiet History and a program fellow at the Berkman Center of Harvard University, where he is associate director of metaLAB, a research group exploring the bounds of networked culture.