{"product_id":"9780393078626","title":"Library: An Unquiet History","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Splendidly articulate, informative and provoking....A book to be savored and gone back to.\"—\u003cem\u003eBaltimore Sun\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e On the survival and destruction of knowledge, from Alexandria to the Internet. Through the ages, libraries have not only accumulated and preserved but also shaped, inspired, and obliterated knowledge. Matthew Battles, a rare books librarian and a gifted narrator, takes us on a spirited foray from Boston to Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries, from the Vatican to the British Library, from socialist reading rooms and rural home libraries to the Information Age.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e He explores how libraries are built and how they are destroyed, from the decay of the great Alexandrian library to scroll burnings in ancient China to the destruction of Aztec books by the Spanish—and in our own time, the burning of libraries in Europe and Bosnia.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Encyclopedic in its breadth and novelistic in its telling, this volume will occupy a treasured place on the bookshelf next to Baker's \u003cem\u003eDouble Fold\u003c\/em\u003e, Basbanes's \u003cem\u003eA Gentle Madness\u003c\/em\u003e, Manguel's \u003cem\u003eA History of Reading\u003c\/em\u003e, and Winchester's \u003cem\u003eThe Professor and the Madman\u003c\/em\u003e.","brand":"Norton, W. W. \u0026 Company, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47121466884336,"sku":"9780393078626","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780393078626_p0.jpg?v=1763696937","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780393078626","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}