The Architecture of Western Libraries, from the Minoan era to Michelangelo deals with the architectural evolution of the spaces in which written and graphic material was kept, from the Minoan times to the Italian Renaissance (ca. 1600 BCE- 1600 CE).
Nowadays these rooms are known as "libraries"; however, the library acquired its present form through a turbulent journey.
The five chapters that comprise the book cover the Greek world, the Roman world, the Byzantine period, the Western Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, respectively.
Author K. Sp. Staikos examines in detail the special features of the chambers used to store books in public, private, monastic and palace libraries.
The main aim of this study is to familiarize the wider public with the distinctive architectural traits of the library, as well as with the people who contributed to the preservation of the heritage of written documents.
In addition, special mention is made of the political and religious circumstances that affected the architectural form of libraries throughout ages and cultures. Illustrated throughout in black & white and color. Translation by Cullen, Doumas, Koutras, & Spathi.
The Admont Library in Admont, Austria
Located in the foothills of the Alps, this beautiful library is the second-largest monastery library in the world.
The library hall was designed in the late baroque style by the architect Joseph Hueber.

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We had a conversation on the podcast about the racialization of dog breeds, where we talked to @BronwenDickey, the author of Pitbull: The Battle Over an American Icon.


In the 1930s, Pitbulls — which, as Bronwen pointed out to me over and over, don’t constitute a dog breed but a shape — used to be seen as the trusty sidekick of the proletariat, the Honda Civic of canines. (Think of “the Little Rascals” dog.)
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That began changing in the postwar years and the rise of the suburbs. A pedigreed dog became a status symbol for the burgeoning white middle class. And pitbulls got left behind in the cities.

Aside: USians have flitted between different “dangerous” breeds and media-fueled panics around specific dogs. (anti-German xenophobia in the late 1800s fueled extermination programs of the spitz, a little German dog that newspapers said was vicious and spread disease.)

Some previously “dangerous” dogs get rebranded over the years — German shepherds, Dobermans, Rottweilers. But the thing their respective periods of contempt and concern had to do is that they were associated with some contemporarily undesirable group.

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