Comment by henryfjordan
7 years ago
I think by "loss of books" he means the extinction of a text. The printing press means more copies of a book can be printed, thus lowering the chance that we lose the text altogether
7 years ago
I think by "loss of books" he means the extinction of a text. The printing press means more copies of a book can be printed, thus lowering the chance that we lose the text altogether
> I think by "loss of books" he means the extinction of a text.
And that is exactly how I've interpreted it in all of my comments.
> The printing press means more copies of a book can be printed, thus lowering the chance that we lose the text altogether
As I point out in response to your sibling comment, Mesopotamian works, which had to be copied by hand 3000 years ago, have been much better preserved than Chinese works that were mass produced 1000 years ago, simply because clay tablets are much more robust than paper is.
If you want your text to last, inscribe it high on a cliff: the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription is still around and almost as good as new.
Though note that after the cultural upheaval brought by Islam, the Persians forgot how to read that inscription, which is a different form of book loss.