Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	p. ix
	Introduction	p. 1
	The Ancient World
	The Near East	p. 22
	Egypt	p. 32
	Greece	p. 38
	The Library of Alexandria	p. 43
	Other Ancient Libraries and Aristotle's Lost Books	p. 55
	China	p. 66
	Rome and Early Christianity	p. 75
	Oblivion and the Fragility of Books	p. 88
	From Byzantium to the Nineteenth Century
	Constantinople	p. 94
	Between Monks and Barbarians	p. 100
	The Islamic World	p. 106
	Misplaced Medieval Fervor	p. 114
	The Destruction of Pre-Hispanic Culture in the Americas	p. 125
	The Renaissance	p. 136
	England	p. 149
	Revolutions in France, Spain, and Latin America	p. 158
	Fires, Wars, Mistakes, and Messiahs	p. 172
	Books Destroyed in Fiction	p. 188
	From the Twentieth Century to the Present
	The Rise of Fascism	p. 200
	Censorship and Self-Censorship in the Modern Age	p. 224
	China and the Soviet Union	p. 233
	Spain, Chile, and Argentina	p. 243
	A Particular Kind of Hatred	p. 251
	On the Natural Enemies of Books	p. 260
	Iraq	p. 267
	Notes	p. 283
	Bibliography	p. 301
	Index of Names	p. 337

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