theorywatch

Am currently reading Holocaust historian Timothy Ryback’s brilliant Hitler’s Private Library (about Hitler’s own collection of books, now located, somewhat surprisingly, in the Library of Congress), and coincidentally have just came across Melville’s Marginalia, a remarkable collection of books from Herman Melville’s own personal library, now located (also rather surprisingly) in Boise.

This is, of course, another source of knowledge that we’re unlikely to have about authors (though it seems wrong to class both Hitler and Melville in that “ideal” category, it’s all too accurate, considering how influential their writings have been in very different ways) in the future, given current trends toward e-books and the associated loss of what we might call “core memory” in another context….