European University Institute Library

Information hunters, when librarians, soldiers, and spies banded together in World War II Europe, Kathy Peiss

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Information hunters

electronic resource

dictionariesbibliography

1129460744

Kathy Peiss

Oxford scholarship online.

when librarians, soldiers, and spies banded together in World War II Europe

'Information Hunters' examines the unprecedented American effort to acquire foreign publications & information in World War II Europe. An unlikely band of librarians, scholars, soldiers, & spies went to Europe to collect books & documents to aid the Allies' cause. They travelled to neutral cities to find enemy publications for intelligence analysis & followed advancing armies to capture records in a massive program of confiscation. After the war, they seized Nazi works from bookstores & schools & gathered countless looted Jewish books. Improvising library techniques in wartime conditions, they contributed to Allied intelligence, preserved endangered books, engaged in restitution, & participated in the denazification of book collections. This work explores what collecting meant to the men & women who embarked on these missions & how the challenges of a total war led to an intense focus on books & documents.--, Provided by publisher

specialized