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Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'
A Universal History of the Destruction of Books: From Ancient Sumer to Modern-Day Iraq by Fernando Báez
1 review
spilled's review
5.0
This is one of the saddest books I have ever read. Though the first parts are sufficiently awful, from the Library of Alexandria burning to the destruction of all Mayan literature, what made my heartbreak bitingly acute was Báez's account of much more recent events. It's easy to hate Nazis, and their Bibliocaust that preceded the Holocaust is as appalling as expected. But what really crushed me were the deliberate bombing of the Sarajevo National Library in 1992 and the complete destruction of the National Library of Baghdad in 2003. The inanity of such acts at a time in which we call ourselves civilized is incomprehensible.
In the immediate aftermath of Shock and Awe, the U.S. Military guarded the Ministry of Petroleum and left the National Library of Baghdad completely vulnerable, even despite the pleadings of those ranging from generals to archaeologists to President Bush's own cultural adviser. Donald Rumsfeld's comment on the event which humanity lost its own history among dozens of millions of priceless documents was, "Stuff happens."
After the catastrophe at the Sarajevo National Library, Bosnian poet [a: Goran Simic|599337|Goran Simic|http://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1229274837p2/599337.jpg] wrote in "Lament for Vijecnica,"
"The National Library burned for three days last August and the city was choked with black snow. Set free from the stacks, characters wandered the streets, mingling with passers-by and the souls of dead soldiers."
11/24: I don't know why I do things like this to myself. Besides the fact that the back of the book uses adjectives like "horrific" and "terrifying," my intense love of books means that on every page it feels like 20,000 of my friends have just died. But so far I'm quite fascinated despite my heartbreak.
In the immediate aftermath of Shock and Awe, the U.S. Military guarded the Ministry of Petroleum and left the National Library of Baghdad completely vulnerable, even despite the pleadings of those ranging from generals to archaeologists to President Bush's own cultural adviser. Donald Rumsfeld's comment on the event which humanity lost its own history among dozens of millions of priceless documents was, "Stuff happens."
After the catastrophe at the Sarajevo National Library, Bosnian poet [a: Goran Simic|599337|Goran Simic|http://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1229274837p2/599337.jpg] wrote in "Lament for Vijecnica,"
"The National Library burned for three days last August and the city was choked with black snow. Set free from the stacks, characters wandered the streets, mingling with passers-by and the souls of dead soldiers."
11/24: I don't know why I do things like this to myself. Besides the fact that the back of the book uses adjectives like "horrific" and "terrifying," my intense love of books means that on every page it feels like 20,000 of my friends have just died. But so far I'm quite fascinated despite my heartbreak.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and War
Minor: Religious bigotry
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