[Sca-cooks] OT: How to destroy a book

[emilio szabo]

Adapting and even "manipulating" historical subjects to one's own literary 
purposes has a long history. Genre names like "historical novel" indicate that 
there are licences and no footnotes ...


Do you assume, that there is something like historical "truth". May I suggest 
that you read some of Hayden White's or Arthur C. Danto's works on the role of 
narrativity in historiography?


What you can destroy are certain copies of books. I guess you will have to buy 
each copy in order to destroy it. Your proposal will not be a cheap endeavour. 
If you are very rich and if you can buy many many copies in order to destroy 
them, this will have the consequence that the book ends up on top of the 
bestseller lists because so many copies have been sold. There is no distinction 
between the copies sold for reading and the copies sold for burning. The more 
copies you destroy, the more copies will be printed and sold ...


Of course, things are different when you are a dictator destroying/burning only 
one copy in a symbolic way in a prominent situation and the media are present. 
But I sincerely hope you are not in such a position.


If you do not like the book, write a review at Amazon or wherever you like 
instead. 



E.