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Taking as its starting point the infamous 1933 "non-German" and Jewish book burning, which gave a pretty unequivocal idea about the intentions of the Nazis, Burning Books plunges us into a 3,000-year journey through the destruction of knowledge and the fight to preserve it. Richard Ovenden, director of the world-renowned Bodleian Library at Oxford, tells us that attacks on libraries have been a historical constant since ancient times, but have increased in frequency and intensity in the Modern Age. Libraries are much more than warehouses of literature; By keeping legal documents such as the Magna Carta or census records, they also defend the law and the rights of citizens. In this fascinating book Ovenden traces a comprehensive analysis, from what actually happened to the Library of Alexandria to the papers of the Windrush generation, and from Donald Trump deleting embarrassing tweets to John Murray burning Lord Byron's memoirs in the name of censorship. This work is both a great history of civilization and a manifesto on the vital importance of physical libraries in an increasingly digital age, but Burning Books is also a human story brought to life by an astonishing cast of adventurers, self-taught archaeologists, poets, activists... and, of course, librarians and the heroic path they travel to preserve and rescue knowledge and thus guarantee the survival of civilization.