Library:Unquiet History PA

by Battles,Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780393325645
• ISBN10: 0393325644
• Edition: 00
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2004-06-17
• Publisher: W W NORTON

Summary

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 Spanish'”and 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.

Author Biography

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

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	ix
1. READING THE LIBRARY	3	(19)
2. BURNING ALEXANDRIA	22	(34)
3. THE HOUSE OF WISDOM	56	(26)
4. THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS	82	(35)
5. BOOKS FOR ALL	117	(39)
6. KNOWLEDGE ON FIRE	156	(36)
7. LOST IN THE STACKS	192	(23)
NOTES ON SOURCES	215	(14)
INDEX	229