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Laddar... Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack (utgåvan 2020)av Richard Ovenden (Författare)
VerksinformationBurning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge av Richard Ovenden
Books Read in 2024 (1,240) Laddar...
Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. The author of Book Burning does a great job of analyzing the intentional destruction of knowledge over the centuries and makes great arguments for the archiving and digital preservation of social media. Written by the principal librarian of Oxford University's the Bodleian libraries, Ovenden reflects on how libraries and archives reflect the culture, history and society that people live in and when knowledge is destroyed, with it goes the foundations of that society. Ein grandioser Titel und die Lieblingsfarbe Orange auf Schwarz verwoben, mit Federkielen, die sich rundbiegen, auf die Erde drücken: diese Titelgestaltung hat mich bewogen, das Buch zu kaufen. Ein typisch bibliophiler Kauf. Design also in der Bewertung: außerordentlich gelungen. Der Inhalt ist für mich leider schwer lesbar, finde keinen Zugang. 20 Seiten Einleitung, ein sicheres Zeichen für eingeschränkte Lesbarkeit, über 100 Seiten Anhang, einige Beispiele. Nach einem Jahr bin ich immer noch nicht in diesem Buch angekommen, habe mir aber fest vorgenommen, Teile zu lesen. As a librarian, I really enjoyed reading this and learning about how librarians in the past have fought against the destruction of knowledge and records for the greater good. I did learn quite a bit from reading this, and appreciate Ovenden's voice as an authority on the subject. If you're somebody who wants to learn more about the history of the destruction of knowledge, and how there will always be people fighting against it, this is a truly enlightening Non-Fiction read. I give it three stars simply because it took me so long to finish, and I wish it was a tad more engaging in parts. Most of the earlier chapters were up my alley in terms of interests and historical periods, but later chapters lost me a bit.
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.
In Burning the Books, 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 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 this book, 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. Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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A number of libraries were deliberately attacked and destroyed over the years, in attempts to suppress a religion or a specific culture. All the stories are heartbreaking to me, because of the loss of knowledge and history. And unfortunately it still continues today. Serbia's deliberate destruction of the National Library of Bosnia occurred only 30 years ago.
Ovenden also addresses the move to the digital world, and how much of current social discussion takes place online. He is greatly concerned about the loss of history for future research if what is online is not preserved. So much of it is currently under the control of a few large tech companies, whose purpose is to make money, not to preserve information for the future. Ovenden feels that libraries and archives need much better funding so that they can carry out the task of preserving this information for the future. At the end, he makes a plea to "the holders of power" to adequately fund libraries and archives.
I thought the book was interesting and very well written. Highly recommended. ( )