Today sees 'Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge' published by @Harvard_Press in the US and Canada! I have written the book to draw attention to the social importance of preserving knowledge. 1/7 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674241206&content=reviews

It is vital that we remember that the destruction of libraries and archives has profound consequences for society. We saw this as recently as the 1990s in Bosnia and Herzegovina as the Serb Militia, besieging Sarajevo, targeted the National Library with incendiary shells 2/7

The Library, in the Vicećnica (City Hall) which used Islamic, Christian, & Jewish architectural styles, symbolised the multi-ethnic culture of Sarajevo and of Bosnia as a whole. The Serb forces targeted firefighters and librarians trying to save the library with sniper fire. 3/7

The destruction of the Library eventually reached the attention of the world press, sparking notes of outrage, but the death of librarians, such as Aida Butorović, who was shot by a Serb sniper, failed to grab their attention 4/7

Across Bosnia, there were numerous library and archive collections that were also targeted, especially provincial archives which held records of land ownership, as the Serbs tried to eradicate the recorded memory of Muslims owning property in the region 5/7

We must not forget the massacre of Srebrenica, just 25 years ago this year, and remember the words of Heine: 'Whenever they burns books, they will also, in the end, burn human beings'. 6/7

A librarian @HarvardLibrary, András Reidlmayer, worked tirelessly to help rebuild the destroyed libraries of Bosnia, & gave powerful evidence at the trial of Milosević for the crimes against culture. András embodies the librarians' impulse to preserve knowledge & seek justice 7/7