Remarkable Books: The World’s Most Beautiful and Historic WorksPrefaceA book is a remarkable thing. It can represent beauty, knowledge, ideas, freedom, and escapism— and, crucially, what is imparted depends on who is reading it. To one person a book may be a mine of information, which informs, enlightens, and illuminates. To another it may represent a journey into a different life, offering something bigger and more extraordinary than their own world perspective. To others still, a book may be an object of beauty, something to collect, preserve, and treasure. Whatever the motivation for reading, books and the experiences they give us are to be cherished.
In theory, what constitutes a book is easy to define: a set of written or printed pages that are bound together and convey information. Yet the first “books,” thousands of years old, were scrolls inscribed with ink, or slabs of bamboo engraved with a script. From these ancient beginnings the handwritten book evolved into a printed artifact, which eventually became mass-produced and available to all. Today a book is still a set of printed pages; yet it may also be a digital file that a person can pay to access but never physically own.
The historic importance of the book cannot be overstated, as it is through written documentation that human history and development can be accurately traced. For centuries books were our primary means of spreading knowledge—they communicated religious and spiritual rituals and teachings; they enabled scientific theories to be shared across the world; they disseminated political ideas that unified the disenfranchised of society and formed the seeds of revolution. Once the preserve of the elite, books have evolved over time to form a constant and essential part of human life, whether as a school textbook, a travel guide, a sacred text, or a novel for bedtime reading. Through books we educate our children about the world they live in; through books we teach them how to read. The books on our shelves trace a line through our own lives, each one a memory of a time gone by: a place visited, a person we knew, a story we loved. To know and have access to books is a privilege that is easy to underestimate.
Today an understanding of the role of books is more important than ever. Books represent freedom of expression and of information—subjects once considered controversial, such as political agendas, sexual content, or scientific reasoning, are now firmly within the public domain, largely due to authors who dared to challenge established thought by publishing texts that were deemed contentious, or even heretical. Consequently, throughout history this precious commodity has frequently come under threat. Religious and political censorship have led to the banning, and in extreme cases the destruction, of many great literary works. Even today, the rise of the internet and the development of ebooks has threatened the popularity and perceived usefulness of what was once our most ubiquitous art form. However, neither the convenience and portability of the ebook, nor the infinite scope of the internet as a source of information, has been able to supersede the vital importance of the book to human society.
Remarkable Books offers a window into some of the most beautiful and important books produced since the origins of the written word. These books are featured as much for their physical beauty—from exquisite illuminated manuscripts to masterpieces in typographic design—as for their historical, cultural, and social significance—such as scientific papers, political treatises, and formative children’s literature. Everybody’s list of the most remarkable books in history will be different—the thousands of books that have influenced the world cannot all be included within these pages. What is presented here is a selection of unique and extraordinary books without which the world would be a very different, and infinitely poorer, place.
PDF download here: http://%20https://fr.ca1lib.org/book/3697847/31abe7http:// https://fr.ca1lib.org/book/3697847/31abe7 Book of Kells (Latin: Codex Cennanensis Dated around 800 CE
