The confession that one does not know what to read next, or where to begin in an unfamiliar subject, is shameful in a society in which nobody wishes to be a beginner and where naivete is likely to earn the scorn accorded to all newcomers. How are we to choose among the thousands of available titles? To enter a library is immediately to be seized by a kind of panic one risks starving among such plenty. Printing has done the same for books: the paperback is scarcely more expensive than the fine art print.Our problem is no longer one of access it is more likely to be one of choice. Mechanical reproduction has removed art from the hands of the few and made it accessible to all. Masterpieces which men of the eighteenth century and before had to travel to see are now within the reach of all who can afford a postcard or a newspaper supplement. Modern printing, Malraux proceeded to argue, has actually made such a collection a practical possibility. It was Andre Malraux who first coined the term "muse'e imaginaire" to describe the choice of the world's art which a man might make to furnish his own private museum. The intention of this book is to furnish an -imaginary library" of some three thousand volumes in which a reasonably literate person can hope to find both instruction and inspiration, art and amusement. Asian, African and Middle Eastern History.
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