Libraries and archives have been under attack since ancient times, but they have been particularly threatened in the modern era. Today, the knowledge contained in libraries faces deliberate destruction and neglect; deprived of funding, they struggle for their very existence. The author tells the story of the struggle of the knowledge contained in libraries for survival from the past to the present day. Throughout the book, Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from shattered Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed migration documents of the Wondrich generation in the United Kingdom. He then examines the motivations behind these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, and presents the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often putting their lives on the line.