Book Review: Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (2020)

In Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge, Richard Ovenden covers the creation of cuneiform tablets, the loss of the Library of Alexandria, the destruction of knowledge during the English Reformation, book burnings during the Holocaust, cultural site and library destruction during the Bosnian and Iraqi wars and how the digitization of documents could either preserve or destroy knowledge depending on how such information is handled. While there have been other historical works published that cover the intentional destruction of knowledge, Ovenden’s work is the most expansive, accessible, and diverse study to be published in recent years. However, this book builds upon previous scholarship to create such an expansive account of the historical destruction of knowledge. Ovenden states in the Introduction that his purpose in writing this work is due to his own sense of anger at the repeated attacks on the preservation of knowledge that have occurred over the last several centuries. This book is therefore a successful historical account of the destruction of knowledge around the world, touching on several different centuries and geographic areas, that is also accessible for the public. 

Ovenden’s work provides important insight into the political and cultural significance of the destruction of knowledge from books and documents to libraries and cultural heritage sites and how the preservation of knowledge is just as important for the future as it is for the past.

Rating 5.0/5.0