{"id":14056,"date":"2025-10-11T14:46:36","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T21:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=14056"},"modified":"2025-10-11T14:47:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T21:47:27","slug":"barbarians-no-bibliotheca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2025\/10\/11\/barbarians-no-bibliotheca\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbarians no Bibliotheca!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefp.com\/p\/niall-ferguson-without-books-we-will-be-barbarians\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">from The Free Press<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Niall Ferguson: Without Books We Will Be Barbarians<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>It is not the road to serfdom that awaits\u2014but the steep downward slope to the status of a peasant in ancient Egypt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefp.com\/w\/niall-ferguson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Niall Ferguson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!l5er!,w_750,h_440,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4a6a2dce-0cb1-4430-9da1-efe5a2d60041_6142x3333.heic\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>\u201cWHAT RAY BRADBURY FAILED TO ANTICIPATE IS THAT HIS NATIVE AMERICA\u2014AND INDEED THE WESTERN WORLD\u2014MIGHT TURN AWAY FROM LITERACY VOLUNTARILY,\u201d WRITES NIALL FERGUSON. (BFA VIA ALAMY)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>He wanted above all .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.<\/em>\u201d \u2014Ray Bradbury,&nbsp;<em>Fahrenheit 451<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s hard not to be impressed by Ray Bradbury\u2019s prescience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefp.com\/p\/niall-ferguson-without-books-we-will-be-barbarians\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click to continue reading at The Free Press<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from The Free Press Niall Ferguson: Without Books We Will Be Barbarians It is not the road to serfdom that awaits\u2014but the steep downward slope to the status of a peasant in ancient Egypt. By\u00a0Niall Ferguson \u201cWHAT RAY BRADBURY FAILED TO ANTICIPATE IS THAT HIS NATIVE AMERICA\u2014AND INDEED THE WESTERN WORLD\u2014MIGHT TURN AWAY FROM LITERACY [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art","category-literary-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}