Overview
In On the Burning of Books, Baker explores famous moments throughout history when books have been burnt for political, religious, or personal reasons. Included among his investigations are stories from ancient China to the Nazis, from George Orwell’s Animal Farm to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, from Chairman Mao to the Spanish destruction of the Aztec civilization. Baker describes Samuel Pepys burning an erotic novel, and the personal fires of Lord Byron’s memoirs, Dickens’s letters, Hardy’s poems, and Philip Larkin’s diaries. Alongside these many examples are chapters on accidental book burning—and even lucky escapes.
Full Product Details
Author: Lord Kenneth Baker
Publisher: Unicorn Publishing Group
Imprint: Unicorn Press Ltd
Dimensions:
Width: 16.50cm
, Height: 2.90cm
, Length: 24.50cm
Weight: 1.044kg
ISBN: 9781910787113
ISBN 10: 1910787116
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 26 May 2016
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Kenneth baker's account of books burnt down the ages for political, religious or personal reasons is frighteningly pertinent and apposite...directly and devastatingly written The Daily Mail Book of the Week; This is a book which, as one eyes its lavish illustrations and dips into its elegant prose, looks as if it ought to come with an option to buy a cut-price John Lewis coffee table.On the Burning of Books is, in fact, much more than that. It wears its scholarship lightly. Bakers compendium of punchy, textual-pictorial examples covers the ground from Caliph Omar, destroyer of the Library of Alexandria, Goebbels s bibliocaust , Bomber Harris s fiery raids on Leipsig and Dresden, and the Bradford protestors who tied a copy of The Satanic Verses to a stake and tried to incinerate it. It charred, but did not burn. A symbol, some might say. The Spectator; I so admire Kenneth, a truly go-ahead former education secretary; and to have produced (at 81) this inspiring history, testament to the brave and raspberry to intolerance, is magnificent. Matthew Parris -The Times; On the Burning of Books: How Flames Fail to Destroy the Written Word is an informative book on a hot topic...In essence, Bakers is a superior sort of coffee-table book New Statesman; Why have Harry Potter, Superman and Animal Farm all been put to the flame? Former Home Secretary Kenneth Baker illuminates the strange history of book-burning... Mail on Sunday
Author Information
Kenneth Baker, Baron Baker of Dorking, CH, PC is a British politician and a former Conservative MP, having served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Education and as Home Secretary. He has previously written two books: George III: A Life in Caricature and George IV: A Life in Caricature.
