#  Why Books? (2010) 

 



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YouTube may not have been the decisive factor. Long before the advent of our satured world of media intensities -- of iPods supplying perpetual life soundtracks and Twitter beaming the world's mental burps into our phones -- the book had faced its skeptics. "I hate books," wrote famously the tutor of *Émile*. "They teach us only to speak," he continued, "of what we do not know." Little could he have imagined that a mere two centuries later, *sçavans* across the globe would be rushing to the defense of books in a new age of visual and digital proliferation. Whether economic, technical, pedagogical, cultural, or social, the question "Why books?" thus has a long history -- one towards the end of which our time has perhaps only begun to arrive.

Learn about Radcliffe's "Why Books?" conference, held on October 28-29, 2010 by exploring the links. Materials include summaries of visits to key centers of bookishness at Harvard, as well as videos and résumés of talks and discussions.