The circulation of books was the motor of classical civilization. However, books were both expensive and rare, and so libraries - private and public, royal and

LONGLISTED FOR THE HISTORICAL WRITERS' ASSOCIATION NON-FICTION CROWN A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A sweeping, absorbing history, deeply researched, of that

While the importance of writing has often been recognized, the role of books and especially that of libraries has just as often been slighted. Knowledge, once g

Almost as old as the idea of the library is the urge to destroy it. Author Lucien X. Polastron traces the history of this destruction, examining the causes for

The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction—and surprising survival—of recorded knowledge