Melville House Books

The head of the national library in France, Jean-Noel Jeanneney, has raised a “war cry” over plans by Google to put the collections of some of America’s leading libraries on line. As a Reuters wire story reports, Jeanneney says, “It is not a question of despising Anglo-Saxon views … It is just that in the simple act of making a choice, you impose a certain view of things. I favor a multi*#150;polar view of the world in the 21st century. I don’t want the French Revolution retold just by books chosen by the United States. The picture presented may not be less good or less bad, but it will not be ours.” Partners in the Google project are Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University, the University of Michigan and the New York Public Library. “Here we find a risk of crushing domination by America in defining the idea that future generations have of the world,” says Jeanneney. He has responded to the American effort “by announcing the national library would make editions of 22 French periodicals and newspapers dating back to the 19th century available on the Internet.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.