Library : An Unquiet History - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434008877 ISBN 13: 9780434008872

Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd

Synopsis

Matthew Battles, a rare books librarian at Harvard and narrator, gives a colourful tour through the stacks from ancient times to the 21st century. Through the ages, libraries have not only accumulated and preserved, but also controlled, inspired, shaped, hidden and obliterated knowledge. Battle's spirited journey takes the reader 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 beginnings of the World Wide Web. Along the way, Battles explores not only how libraries are built but how they are destroyed, from the neglect and decay of Alexandria (and myth of its burning), to the burnings of scrolls in ancient China, to the destruction of Aztec books by the Spanish conquerors - and in our own time, the burning of libraries in Europe by the Nazis and by Bosnian Serbs in the Balkans.

About this title

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 ilves in Jamaica n, Massachusetts.

From Publishers Weekly

Battles, a contributor to Harper's and a Harvard librarian, offers a distinguished portrait of the library, its endurance and destruction throughout history, and traces how the library's meaning was questioned or altered according to the climate of the time. In accessible prose, Battles recounts the building and burning that have marked the library's long history. The Vatican Library built by Pope Nicholas V set the standard during the Renaissance, and the one built by the Jews in the Vilna ghetto during WWII showed the importance of books to a community under siege. Meanwhile, the mythic third-century B.C. book burnings by Chinese emperor Shi Huangdi were an effort to erase history, as was the catastrophic destruction of millions of books by the Nazis in the spring of 1933. Dynamic characters lend this history a novelistic tone: Julius Caesar began the library movement in Rome; Antonio Panizzi, an Italian revolutionary and exile, turned the library of the British Museum into one of the world's greatest in the 19th century; more recently, Nikola Koljevic, a scholar turned Serb nationalist, directed the siege of Sarajevo that led to a book burning at the Bosnian National and University Library. Battles also enlightens readers regarding the evolution of bookmaking, the card catalogue and the role of the librarian, including the most famous of all, Melvil Dewey, whose decimal system was only a small part of his influence. This always compelling history illustrates Battles's theme: despite the rule of barbarians or megalomaniacal kings, angry mobs and natural disasters, people's hunger for books has ensured the library's survival. 11 illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd
• ISBN 10: 0434008877
• ISBN 13: 9780434008872
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English