Lost Libraries

James Raven is a co-editor of "The Practice and Representation of Reading in England" (Cambridge University Press, 1996), and editor of "Free Print and Non-Commercial Publishing Since 1700" (Ashgate Press, 2000). He is the author of "London Booksellers and American Customers" (University of South Carolina Press, 2001).

This volume of essays explores the destruction of great libraries since ancient times and examines the intellectual, political and cultural consequences of loss.This pioneering volume of essays explores the destruction of great libraries since ancient times and examines the intellectual, political and cultural consequences of loss. Fourteen original contributions, introduced by a major re-evaluative history of lost libraries, offer the first ever comparative discussion of the greatest catastrophes in book history from Mesopotamia and Alexandria to the dispersal of monastic and monarchical book collections, the Nazi destruction of Jewish libraries, and the recent horrifying pillage and burning of books in Tibet, Bosnia and Iraq.