Library: An Unquiet History

Through the ages, libraries have not only accumulatedand preserved but also shaped, inspired, and obliteratedknowledge. Now they are in crisis. Former rare books librarianand Harvard MetaLAB visionary Matthew Battles takes usfrom Boston to Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medievalmonasteries and on to the Information Age, to explorehow libraries are built and how they are destroyed: from thescroll burnings in ancient China to the burning of libraries inEurope and Bosnia to the latest revolutionary upheavals ofthe digital age. A new epilogue elucidates the preservationof knowledge amid the creative destruction of twenty-firstcentury technology.