The Case for Books

The era of the printed book is at a crossroad. E-readers are flooding the market books are available to read on cell phones and companies such as Google Amazon and Apple are competing to command near monopolistic positions as sellers and dispensers of digital information. Already more books have been scanned and digitized than were housed in the great library in Alexandria. Is the printed book resilient enough to survive the digital revolution or will it become obsolete? In this lasting collection of essays Robert Darntonan intellectual pioneer in the field of this history of the booklends unique authority to the life role and legacy of the book in society.>