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Burning the Books - A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge (Hardcover)
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Burning the Books - A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge (Hardcover)
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List price R699
Loot Price R514
Discovery Miles 5 140
You Save R185 (26%)
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Wolfson History Prize Finalist A New Statesman Book of the Year A
Sunday Times Book of the Year "If you care about books, and if you
believe we must all stand up to the destruction of knowledge and
cultural heritage, this is a brilliant read-both powerful and
prescient."-Elif Shafak The director of the famed Bodleian
Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful
destruction-and surprising survival-of recorded knowledge over the
past three millennia. Libraries and archives have been attacked
since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the
modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful
destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are
fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the
history that brought us to this point. Richard Ovenden describes
the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and
archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from
smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration
documents of the UK Windrush generation. He examines both the
motivations for these acts-political, religious, and cultural-and
the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at
attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring
the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information,
often risking their own lives in the process. More than simply
repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and
inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in
such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence,
libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of
citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in
legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the US
Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books,
Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political
importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge,
challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole,
to improve public policy and funding for these essential
institutions.
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