Books Across Borders: UNESCO and the Politics of Postwar Cultural Reconstruction, 1945-1951 is a history of the emotional, ideological, informational, and technical power and meaning of books and libraries in the aftermath of World War II, examined through the cultural reconstruction activities undertaken by the Libraries Section of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The book focuses on the key actors and on-the-ground work of the Libraries Section in four central areas: empowering libraries around the world to acquire the books they wanted and needed; facilitating expanded global production of quality translations and affordable books; participating in debates over the contested fate of confiscated books and displaced libraries; and formulating notions of cultural rights as human rights. Through examples from France, Poland, and surviving Jewish Europe, this book provides new insight into the complexities and specificities of UNESCO's role in the realm of books, libraries, and networks of information exchange during the early postwar, post-Holocaust, Cold War years.

Autorentext

Miriam Intrator is Special Collections Librarian responsible for rare books at Ohio University, USA. She received her PhD in Modern European History from the Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA, in 2013, and received the 2015 Phyllis Dain Library History Dissertation Award.

Inhalt
1. Introduction: The UNESCO Libraries Section

2. Wartime Planning, Postwar Response

3. Books Between Libraries: Sharing, Exchange, and Purchasing

4. Books Across Borders: Translation and Cheap Books 5. The Contested Fate of Confiscated Books and Objectionable Literature

6. Non-restitutable Books and the Library That Never Was

7. Access to Books, Libraries, and Information: Cultural Right, Human Right
8. Conclusion: From the Postwar to Today