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.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Ww Norton & Co
ISBN-13
9780393020298
eBay Product ID (ePID)
96010785
Product Key Features
Subject Area
Library Science
Author
Matthew Battles
Publication Name
Library: an Unquiet History
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Subject
History
Publication Year
2003
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
256 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
218mm
Item Width
147mm
Item Weight
398g
Additional Product Features
Title_Author
Matthew Battles
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States
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