The Tower of Babel refers to the story from the Bible's first book, Genesis, in which the hubris of people leads to the building of a gigantic tower, a technological marvel for its time but one that ultimately contains the seeds of its own undoing. People build the tower as a symbol of greatness and unity but in the end are scattered by God and thrown into disunity and disarray. It's an enduring story precisely because it seems to so well encapsulate our relationship with technology and the law of unintended consequences.

Borges' story on the Library of Babel is in conversation with this much older story.