THIS IDEA FOR this book emerged somewhat out of the blue, in the spring of 2018, following an op-ed I had published in the Financial Times concerning the place of archives in the Windrush Scandal. For some time I had been concerned about the need to raise public consciousness of the importance of the preservation of knowledge, and the Windrush issues showed that looking at the nature of attacks on knowledge could be a useful way to approach the problem. I was greatly assisted in developing the idea by my agent, Catherine Clarke at Felicity Bryan Associates, who has been an enormous support throughout the project.
My first thanks must go to all my colleagues in the Bodleian. In the course of researching this book I have used the collections of the Social Science Library, the Leopold Muller Memorial Library, the Radcliffe Camera, the Sackler Library, the Bodleian Law Library, the Weston Library, the Upper and Lower Reading Rooms in the Old Bodleian, and I have called countless books, documents and maps from the Book Storage Facility or the stacks of the Weston, asked for documents to be photographed in the imaging studio, made heavy use of our digital resources and services. All the hard-working, loyal and dedicated staff of the Bodleian deserve equal thanks. My tireless, efficient and cheerful directorate staff, led by the unflappable Rosemary Rey, have organised my professional life and made the research for, and writing of, this book possible. I received expert advice from a number of my curatorial colleagues, and would like to thank especially Chris Fletcher, Martin Kauffman, Chrissie Webb, Mike Webb, Mamtimyn Sunuodola, Mai Musié, and César Merchan-Hamann. Martin Poulter, then Wikimedian in residence at the Bodleian, was hugely illuminating about the work of Wikipedia.
An Oxford college is an extraordinary resource for any intellectual endeavour, allowing multiple perspectives on almost any issue to be accessed with great efficiency. My Balliol colleagues have been enormously supportive and encouraging, patiently listening to my often very naive questions. I would especially like to thank John-Paul Ghobrial, Seamus Perry, Rosalind Thomas, Enrico Prodi, Tom Melham, Andy Hurrell, and especially Phil Howard, who was also greatly helpful wearing his hat as head of the Oxford Internet Institute. Balliol colleagues who attended my Research Consilium in May 2019 gave valuable comments. Two Balliol graduate students, Avner Ofrath (now a postdoc at the University of Bremen) and Olivia Thompson, worked with me as research assistants on the book, and I would not have been able to complete it without their industrious scholarship and their many important insights.
Other friends and colleagues in Oxford who have given generously of their advice and expertise: Jonathan Bate, Christian Sahner, Sir Noel Malcolm, James Willoughby, Meg Bent, Sandy Murray, Piet van Boxel, Paul Collins, Andrew Martin, Cécile Fabre, George Garnett, Alan Rusbridger, Paul Slack, Sir Keith Thomas, Steve Smith, Adam Smith, Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Anne Trefethen, Julia Walworth and Henry Woudhuysen. I benefited greatly from attending Richard Sharpe’s wonderful Lyell Lectures in Oxford in May 2019 on the highly relevant topic of the medieval libraries of Great Britain. His sudden death, while this book was being copy-edited, is a major blow to me, and to medieval scholarship. Stephanie Dalley saved me from many blunders.
I was greatly assisted by Andrea Dautović at the National Museum of Bosnia Herzegovina, Claire Weatherall at the Hull History Centre and by Ashley Gilbertson. Sara Baxter, Hattie Cooke and Emma Cheshire helped clear rights from the Society of Authors and Faber for use of the quotes by Philip Larkin.
Some friends and colleagues have been particularly generous and without them I would not have been able to write this book at all. Heading this list is Joseph Sassoon who shared his deep knowledge of the recent history of Iraq and introduced me to Kanan Makiya, who was incredibly helpful, allowing me to interview him, and who in turn introduced me to Hassan Mneimneh, Haider Hadi and Eric Wakin at the Hoover Institution. I have also appreciated Joseph’s advice and support more broadly in writing this book, and he and Helen Jackson showed me wonderful hospitality in Washington. Timothy Garton Ash discussed at length both the place of archives in national remembering (and forgetting) and the dangers of the ‘private superpowers’ in the digital realm, and his own writing has been a continuing source of inspiration.
David Ferriero, archivist of the United States, and Jeff James, CEO of the National Archives of the United Kingdom, were both founts of wisdom on the current issues facing archives on both sides of the Atlantic, and William Waung shared his knowledge of the situation in Hong Kong. András Riedlmayer’s knowledge of the fate of libraries and archives in Bosnia is without peer, but his generosity in sharing his knowledge was typical of the best of librarians. His own role in the War Crimes Tribunals deserves wider appreciation in my profession.
Other colleagues around the world who were immensely helpful were Ismail Serageldin, who talked with me about the modern Library of Alexandria, Sabine Schmidtke shared details of her work with the Zaydis, Jon Taylor was helpful with the cuneiform collections at the British Museum, and Helen Hockx-Yu, Brewster Kahle, Andy Jackson at the British Library gave me the benefit of their vast knowledge of web archiving. John Y. Cole and Jane Aikin were wonderful resources at the Library of Congress, especially for allowing me to see Jane’s important work on the history of the library while still in draft. David Rundle shared the fruits of his research on the library of Duke Humfrey. Bryan Skib helped me with sources at the University of Michigan and Vint Cerf was a central node for many digital issues. John Simpson shared his memories of Bosnia. The Led By Donkeys team, especially James Sadri, interrupted their campaigning to talk with me. One of the most extraordinary ‘discoveries’ that I made personally was of the amazing institution known as YIVO in New York, and I would like to pay a special tribute to Jonathan Brent, Stefanie Halpern and Shelly Freeman there, who were wonderfully generous with explaining the background to contemporary operations of their unique and special organisation. They also introduced me to David Fishman at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, who spent several hours talking about the Paper Brigade with me. I have relied heavily on David’s own work on those inspirational individuals in Vilna. Robert Saunders shared his thoughts on the link between public knowledge and democracy. Pierre Delsaerdt and James Keating checked references for me at the last minute. My three oldest friends, David Pearson, Bill Zachs and Rev. Michael Suarez SJ, were fountains of good advice, clever ideas and solid support.
I would like to thank several editors for publishing and for vastly improving several pieces which form the earliest expressions of parts of this book: Lionel Barber and Jonathan Derbyshire at the Financial Times, Lorien Kite at the Financial Times Weekend, Kenn Cukier at The Economist and Kenneth Benson at the Carnegie Reporter.
I owe a huge debt to my editor at John Murray, Georgina Laycock, who has been, with her assistant editor Abigail Scruby, instrumental in shaping the book: through their careful and detailed editorial advice they have transformed my prose. Martin Bryant’s insightful copy-editing greatly improved the book, Howard Davies made important improvements through his meticulous proofreading and Caroline Westmore steered the book through production with great skill. Lucy Morton did a wonderful job on the index. I would also like to pay tribute to Sharmila Sen at Harvard University Press for her support throughout the project.
The biggest debt of all is due to my family: my daughters Caitlin and Anna, but especially to my long-suffering wife Lyn, without whom this book would have been an unthinkable project to contemplate, let alone complete. I owe her everything.
Richard Ovenden
Oxford, June 2020