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The library is usually viewed as a place of quiet and order. In this book, Matthew Battles, a librarian at Harvard University, shows how behind this serene appearance lie centuries of conflict and debate. He traces the construction and destruction of libraries, from the ancient library of Alexandria to Nazi book-burnings. The book is, however, more than a history of the library, it is a lively, novelistic reflection on books and our relation to them through the ages. He shows how the library has always been a contested space between different ideas about its purpose, as the private and monastic collections evolved into the public library, creating debates about public access, and whether the librarian should be a tutor or a servant to the reader. Battles also reflects on the historical irony that the collection of books under one roof has made them more vulnerable to fire or cultural vandalism. An entertaining and enlightening look at a far-from-dry subject. (Kirkus UK)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Through the ages, libraries have not only accumulated and preserved, but shaped, inspired and obliterated knowledge. Matthew Battles takes us on a fascinating journey from Boston to Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries, from the Vatican to the British Library. The library has been a battleground of competing notions of what books mean to us, from the clay-tablet collections of ancient Mesopotamia to the legendary libraries of Alexandria, from the burned scrolls of the Qing Dynasty to the book-pyres of the Hitler Youth, from the Dewey Decimal System to the Internet. Battles explores how the library has served two contradictory impulses: to exalt canons of literature, to secure and celebrate the best writing; and the desire to contain all forms of human knowledge - to keep all the books. In its custody of books and the words they contain, the library has confronted and tamed technology, the forces of change and the power of princes time and again.
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First Sentence
When I first went to work in Harvard's Widener Library, I immediately made my first mistake: I tried to read the books. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
When I first went to work in Harvard's Widener Library, I immediately made my first mistake: I tried to read the books. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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