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Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge
Maybe someday
48
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
17/100Critics
80/100Scholars
Author:
Richard Ovenden
Publisher:
Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
Date:
November 17, 2024
Libraries preserve the knowledge and ideas on which rights depend; no wonder they are so often attacked. Richard Ovenden tells the history of this deliberate destruction of knowledge â from library burnings to digital attacks and contemporary underfunding â and makes a passionate plea for the importance of these threatened institutions.
What The Reviewers Say
... a deeply engaging and timely 'history of knowledge under attack'... detailing specific episodes rather than attempting a comprehensive history, charting the apparently never-ending threat to the recorded past. He dissects the methods and motives of those who have sought to burn, bury or delete the texts through which the story of the human race – its wanderings, discoveries and longings – has been documented. But he is careful to lavish special attention, the admiration of a kindred spirit, on those who stood in the way.
... Burning the Books reveals on every page, not only is he careful, diligent and wise, he also knows what to leave out, and what to keep in – and it’s this quality, above all, that makes his book so remarkable. Its sweep is quite astonishing and yet, amazingly, his narrative runs to just 320 pages.
... eminently readable.
... an erudite, frightening and often exhilarating journey, from the partial destruction of the huge library of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal at Nineveh in 612 BC to the current threat to human knowledge posed by our reliance on powerful private interests who control our digital resources.
