Burning Books and Leveling Libraries

Download or read book Burning Books and Leveling Libraries written by Rebecca Knuth and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2006-05-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her previous book Libricide, Knuth focused on book destruction by authoritarian regimes: Nazis, Serbs in Bosnia, Iraqis in Kuwait, Maoists during the Cultural Revolution in China, and the Chinese Communists in Tibet. But authoritarian governments are not the only perpetrators. Extremists of all stripes--through terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and other forms of mass violence--are also responsible for widespread cultural destruction, as she demonstrates in this new book. Whether the product of passion or of a cool-headed decision to use ideas to rationalize excess, the decimation of the world's libraries has occurred throughout the 20th century, and there is no end in sight. Cultural destruction is, therefore, of increasing concern to the library community, educators, human rights and civil rights activists, and caring citizens.