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Burning the Books: RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK - A History of Knowledge Under Attack (Paperback)
Loot Price: R393
Discovery Miles 3 930
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Burning the Books: RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK - A History of Knowledge Under Attack (Paperback)
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Loot Price R393
Discovery Miles 3 930
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Opening with the notorious bonfires of 'un-German' and Jewish
literature in 1933 that offered such a clear signal of Nazi
intentions, Burning the Books takes us on a 3000-year journey
through the destruction of knowledge and the fight against all the
odds to preserve it. Richard Ovenden, director of the world-famous
Bodleian Library, explains how attacks on libraries and archives
have been a feature of history since ancient times but have
increased in frequency and intensity during the modern era.
Libraries are far more than stores of literature, through
preserving the legal documents such as Magna Carta and records of
citizenship, they also support the rule of law and the rights of
citizens. Today, the knowledge they hold on behalf of society is
under attack as never before. In this fascinating book, he explores
everything from what really happened to the Great Library of
Alexandria to the Windrush papers, from Donald Trump's deleting
embarrassing tweets to John Murray's burning of Byron's memoirs in
the name of censorship. At once a powerful history of civilisation
and a manifesto for the vital importance of physical libraries in
our increasingly digital age, Burning the Books is also a very
human story animated by an unlikely cast of adventurers,
self-taught archaeologists, poets, freedom-fighters -- and, of
course, librarians and the heroic lengths they will go to preserve
and rescue knowledge, ensuring that civilisation survives. From the
rediscovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the desert, hidden from the
Romans and lost for almost 2000 years to the medieval manuscript
that inspired William Morris, the knowledge of the past still has
so many valuable lessons to teach us and we ignore it at our peril.
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