Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries throughout History | 
| Author: Lucien X. Polastron
Publisher: Inner Traditions
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 150300
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 1594771677
Dewey Decimal Number: 027.009
EAN: 9781594771675
ASIN: 1594771677
Publication Date: August 13, 2007
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Product Description
A historical survey of the destruction of knowledge from ancient Babylon and China to modern times
• Includes the three separate destructions of the Library of Alexandria as well as many equally significant collections around the world
• Examines the causes of violence directed at repositories of knowledge
• Looks at the dangers posed by digitalization of books to the free availability of knowledge in the future
Hebrew, Hindu, Nordic, and Islamic traditions share the belief of a vast library existing before the creation of the world. The Vedas say that this library predated the creator’s creation of himself. Yet, almost as old as the idea of the library is the urge to destroy it. The reasons cited for this are many: educated people are much harder to govern, and some proclaim that only the illiterate can save the world. There are also great destructions brought about by weather, worms, and even the paranoia of the library’s owner.
Books on Fire traces the history of this perpetual destruction from the burning of the great library of Alexandria (on three separate occasions) and the libraries of the Chinese Qing Dynasty to more modern catastrophic losses such as those witnessed in Nazi-occupied Europe and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The author examines the causes for these disasters, the treasures that have been lost, and where the surviving books, if any, have ended up. His investigation also reveals a new danger facing libraries today with the digitalization of books threatening both the existence of the physical paper book and the very idea of reading for free. The promise of an absolute library offered by the computer may well turn out to equal the worst nightmares of Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell.
Books on Fire received the 2004 Societe des Gens de Lettres Prize for Nonfiction/History in Paris.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 How Bad Can A Book Possibly Be? July 18, 2008
In a Nutshell, this book is just awful. If you have read the earlier review written by Mr Von Deuten, he truly is on the money, accurate and says it all. This is BEYOND boring and dull and presented in such a dry textbook like manner, the reader can not get past 75 pages without quitting. Although some of the information MIGHT BE interesting if the author had stopped to take a breath and given more detailed and easy to swallow descriptions, it's presented so badly. THe author might has well just have given us a list of names and addresses and time periods. You are whisked along so fast through so many names, dates, countries, and historical data that jumps around like a jackrabbit on the run, you cant latch on to one thought long enough to be interested in any one particular library or biblilophile in one area before you are off and running into the next and the next. Very quickly you just dont care. I dont see how anyone could read this and remember a thing they read even a few chapters in. I was so disappointed in this book and would not recommend it to anyone and I can't find anything redeeming or kind to say about it.
 Important but Difficult March 17, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
As a supporter and weekly visitor to libraries, this book piqued my interest while sitting in the "New" section of the library.
Contents:
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1: In the Cradle of Libraries
Chapter 2: The Papyrus Region
Chapter 3: Islam of the First Days
Chapter 4: People of the Book
Chapter 5: Asia before the Twentieth Century
Chapter 6: The Christian West
Chapter 7: The New Biblioclasts
Chapter 8: Peace Damages
Chapter 9: An Embarrassment of Modernity
Chapter 10: Flameproof Knowledge
Chapter 11: Epilogue: Return to Alexandria
Appendix 1: The Great Writers Are Unanimous: Delenda est bibliotheca!
Appendix 2: A Short History of the Census of Lost Books with a Legend to Bring It to a Close-The Hidden Library
Appendix 3: A Selective Chronology
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries throughout History, by Lucien X. Polastron, could be viewed as the standard for the cataloging of the destruction of libraries and books through the ages. Polastron takes the reader on a historical (and not so historical) journey as he details the gathering of knowledge, only to describe its destruction. While we are familiar with the great library in Alexandria, Polastron describes other libraries, of similar importance, that have vanished from the Earth. Some were discovered in the 1900's only to see their contents be trampled under foot or sold off as kindling for fires. While it is easy to visualize the fires, natural disasters, and the elements that have consumed many of the libraries, Polastron also weaves a tale of the possible destruction of this generations libraries due to the digitalization of books. The idea that we can read books for free may become a thing of the past.
Overall, this book was worthy of my time. But it seemed as though this was two books, the first half, if you can get through it, read like a scholarly paper. It is very rough going. But then, about Chapter 6, the tone changes and it becomes a very readable and enjoyable book. It seemed as though there were two editors working on the book, and they didn't speak to each other. I can imagine that many people will read a couple of chapters only to become discouraged and close the book. If you can get through them, the rest of the book is quite good. Another issue I had with the book; early chapters seemed to give the reader some context for the destruction of libraries, but the later ones do not provide you with this background. It was if this wasn't important.
Even though the latter chapters are much more readable and enjoyable than the first half, it is hard to recommend this book to the general population. It seems focused on those in the library sciences and historians. It is an important book, but not very accessible. And that is too bad.
Much Information, Much Opinion February 29, 2008
While I agree with much of what Mr. Van Deuten posted in his review, I do see some utility to the work.
Yes, the work needs editing. Yes, the author often just pushes through a litany of destruction with only the barest commentary other than to announce his disgust and anger. Yes, the work is uneven in its coverage and often too willing to interject angry and colorful opinion in lieu of more detail and background.
However, I do think he has a good bibliography, and as a jumping off point to other works and further research it is useful. For example, the section on the destruction of Chinese books was the most thorough work i had read in book form of the cyclic literary purges in that nation. I will certainly look for more thorough works on that subject, with a bit more knowledge of people and dates than I had before.
One clear point that the author made was that the destruction of writings does go hand in hand with the destruction of people. I do think that more focused works, such as the loss of books in ancient times or in China or in modern Europe will work better for more advanced students of book history.
 Illuminating History of Lost Thought February 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
At first, I found the author's style turgid. But I was mesmerized by the sheer volume of fascinating and scholarly details, so I persisted. As I became immersed in this wonderful book, I also became accustomed to the author's blend of sly asides and wry commentary and his vast scope and depth of information. I recognized that my initial reaction reflected on me and not this book.
Bibliophiles will feel pang after pang as the relentless destruction of the world's libraries, including everything from Sumerian texts to modern-day digitization, is chronicled. Others will feel a chill to realize how fragmentary is the history of human thought. This book suggests that the majority of human literary and scholarly works are lost, via a long history of destruction. It was humbling to me to ponder that, though people in 2008 assume that we are the inheritors of a long, cumulative history of learning, in reality, we just know of the random scraps remaining from a great and tragic decimation.
This book changed my view on the history of human thought. The author spent ten years researching it, and the resulting deeply rich work is a stellar accomplishment that I will return to again and again.
Atrocious January 12, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
The book's jacket draws us in with the observation that, "almost as old as the idea of the library is the urge to destroy it." One should not be fooled by this statement into thinking that the purposeful destruction of libraries will be the author's primary thesis. Indeed, purposeful, malicious, destruction is but a small subset of the author's work. The majority of his effort is devoted to recounting for us the loss, and manner of loss, of, what seems at times, to be every book in history, regardless if this book was lost because of accidental water damage, or age, or because a book seller couldn't rid themselves of it to a customer. In short, the author is not concerned with restricting himself to books that have been prosecuted against, or unique volumes, but all books in general.
With such a scope it is unsurprising that the writing dull. By page 50 we have already become so desensitized to another 50,000 volumes being lost that we hardly care. Moreover, as Polastron doesn't make an effort to create a context in which these books were destroyed, the true tragedy, if there is one, is lost upon us.
Working through the first 100 pages one may be forgiven for having the impression that this book was written for classics majors. So many individuals in so many diverse periods of history are mentioned that the book would be impossible to follow intelligently without a trained background in Greek, Roman, and Middle Eastern history. Certainly for those with this background the book may be of interest as a reference guide. Those less fortunate should not expect the author to spend time bringing them up to speed. The most he'll say is that so-and-so is "famous", ergo we should care, though why that individual is famous will remain a mystery.
Aside from this problem there is a more general issue of quality. The book is in sore need of better editing. Much of the information is superfluous and embodies the kind of material belonging in an appendix (of which, it should be noted, there are two, although these seem more like continuations of the book than proper appendixes). Furthermore, there is a severe slant in information, severely favoring the Christian West over the Chinese East. While there are passages on China, the gross difference in chapter sizes leaves one feeling as though a courtesy was being done. When some areas are so detailed we cannot help but perceive a bias against those sections left bare.
The most jarring event that readers must prepare themselves for however is in the complete change in style that the author undergoes in the last sixth of the book. Until then, we can say that "Books on Fire" is boring. Yet once the author begins to his contemporary times his voice changes from that of a historian to what we, in America, would recognize as a continental philosopher in the style of Mereau Ponty, or Michel Foucault.
Gone are the endless lists of destroyed titles and in come the nearly nonsensical ramblings that, while filled with scorn, dismay, and spite, are lacking in anything substantive. Writing on modern media, for example, the author says, "Yet during tihs time the media have made themselves the capable echo of the usual stream of mayflies attracted by the sunlamps. From Kabul, from Sarajevo they come and they go, hatching their three-hundred-line communiques in which the only new information is "I was there". They are the jet set of the world's tragedies. It must be said that it was a fine party. It cost $100 billion."
From here the author becomes ever more colorful and, unfortunately, irrelevant as he rails against digitization while never confronting the real circumstances that make alternatives unfeasible (he attacks, among other things, the continued production of books that are not protected against acidity, never-minding the cost or the wastefulness of such a procedure for protecting a product that, as he himself attests to, gets destroyed in 50% of the cases anyway).
It is almost as though, halfway through his book, the author, recalling his French philosophical heritage, feels compelled to take up the pen and begin a free-thought rant lasting over 50 pages on his personal views of modernity. This would be interesting were it not for the great expectations this book had conjured up in us. With a title so gripping, "Books on Fire" makes promise that it not only fails to keep but, in large part, completely ignores. While this does not necessarily make it a bad book, it does make for one that mismatches content with aspiration, leaving, at least this reader, thoroughly disappointed. I can only recommend this book to those who feel confident about their classical background and are not interested in a deeper study of the cause behind the destruction of books, rather than a record of this destruction.
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