Odsunuté archivy, zničené knihy
Displaced archives, destroyed books

Summary/Abstract: Lowry, James (ed.). Displaced Archives. London and New York: Routledge, 2017, 227 pp., ISBN 978-1-4724-7069-0; Báez, Fernando. Obecné dějiny ničení knih: Od sumerských tabulek po digitální éru. Translated from Spanish by Daniel Nemrava, Pavlína Švandová, and Radim Zámec. Brno: Host Publishing House, 2012, 597 pp., ISBN 978-80-7294-697-6. The review introduces and compares two books which are to some extent similar as to their topics, but different in terms of the approach to the topic. Both deal with destructive or manipulative treatment of historical and cultural heritage of the past, namely forms of restrictions of access to written documents as a medium containing certain information and possessing a certain value. The collective monograph Displaced Archives is dedicated to archival documents which were “displaced” or “moved” from the place of their origin for political reasons and often rendered unavailable or even destroyed in the process; these are generally sets of documents from former colonies moved or liquidated by European colonial states before theend of their rule. The reviewer describes some of the studies, commends their analytical approach, the comprehensive nature of the publication, as well as theability of its authors to address both the professional community and a broader audience. The second publication, A Universal History of the Destruction of Books: From Ancient Sumer to Modern-day Iraq (original edition: Historia universal de la destrucción de libros: De las tabillas sumerias a la guerra de Irak. Barcelona: Destino, 2004), became a global bestseller and its author Fernando Báez, a Venezuelan essayist and writer, attempted to cover, in a comprehensive manner, the phenomenon of destruction of written records since their oldest beginnings until now init. The reviewer appreciates the author’s vivid, almost belletristic language and the remarkable amount of information concentrated in the book; however, he missesits hierarchization, analysis, and evaluation. In his opinion, the author’s effort to make the topic popular is sometimes on the verge of tabloid journalism.

• Details
• Contents