Library: An Unquiet History

by Matthew Battles

Overview

"Splendidly articulate, informative and provoking....A book to be savored and gone back to."—Baltimore Sun

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393078626
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/07/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	549,706
File size:	954 KB

About the Author

Matthew Battles is the author of Palimpsest and Library: An Unquiet History and a program fellow at the Berkman Center of Harvard University, where he is associate director of metaLAB, a research group exploring the bounds of networked culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

1 Reading the Library 3

2 Burning Alexandria 22

3 The House of Wisdom 56

4 The Battle of the Books 82

5 Books for All 117

6 Knowledge On Fire 156

7 Lost in the Stacks 192

Afterword 215

Notes On Sources 223

Index 237

Editorial Reviews

"Gifted and eloquent, Battles has written a pertinent book, full of insight and humanity."

Nicholas Basbanes

"Battles’ book is an obvious choice for bibliophiles. But the author’s evident enthusiasm for his subject just might fan into flame any passion for books and libraries that smolders in the heart of the general reader, too."

Boston Herald

"Fascinating…At its heart, the book is above all a celebration of mankind’s ceaseless quest to quench curiosity and organize knowledge—a quest all the more timely, yet more overwhelming, in an era when our collective 'library' has swelled into the world wide web, the largest information system humanity has ever known."

Maria Popova

"Blow[s] the dust off our stodgy, conventional conception of the library to reveal the living heart of culture."

Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Huge in scope…engaging."

BookPage

"This is an idiosyncratic and brave book…like many other fine works of literature, [it] is not unlike a library."

Dallas Morning News

"Splendidly articulate, informative and provoking…sweeping in its inclusiveness, extraordinarily brisk in narrative vigor, and consistently lively—utterly trumping the cliches of the mustiness of libraries and the dreariness of librarians. A book among books, to be savored and gone back to."

Baltimore Sun - Michael Packenham

"Battles turns an all-seeing telescope on the most spectacular galaxy in our intellectual heavens—that magnificent constellation of books we call a library—and brings into focus the brightest stars and blackest holes in its dynamic history."

Richard Lederer