Without Books We Will Be Barbarians

It is not the road to serfdom that awaits—but the steep downward slope to the status of a peasant in ancient Egypt.

He wanted above all . . . 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.” —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451It’s hard not to be impressed by Ray Bradbury’s prescience.

In his best-know…