Book Burning and Censorship

For or over two thousand years, book burners have set ablaze millions of books con­demned as religiously heretical, blasphemous, immoral, obscene, politically subver­sive or seditious. The book burning rituals have taken a variety of forms. Books have been attached to the bodies of heretics as they were set afire at the stake. Books have been burned to ashes in the bonfire of vanities. Books have been burned in church yards, college yards, school furnaces, and in city streets. Books were ordered burned by the hand of the "com­mon hangman" in the public square. The image of the thousands of "un-German" books being cast into the bonfires throughout Nazi Germany in May 1933 still conveys the atavism and horrors of the fiery public ritual of the destruction and obliteration of literary, politi­cal, and scientific works. Up into the latter half of the twentieth century, books were being set afire around the world, from Argentina to Vietnam, from Turkey to Chile, from Brazil to China, from Spain to the United States.

The book burnings have continued through the centuries despite the continued warn­ings of the folly and evils of book burning. In his 1644 attack on governmental licensing and censorship, John Milton warned in Areopagitica of the dangers and perniciousness of the destruction of books.

Censorship has been part of human society since ancient times. Early on, it was seen as a legitimate method of regulating society and culture, and it is still perceived that way by some. However, as societies grew more complex, better educated, and more technologically advanced, individuals became more sophisticated. This increased sophistication brought a new awareness of political rights, which in turn ushered in a better understanding of the role of speech, or, more generally, communication, in advancing or thwart­ing society's goals. People began to appreciate the very complexity of speech itself, its degrees of directness and symbolism, and how it can upset or cri­tique the status quo. Thus censorship, which has always been a method of controlling the flow of information and thus the ideas of citizens, came to be used and seen as a tool for repression.

Certainly there are private citizens in the United States and throughout the world who believe that censorship remains a useful method of safe­guarding society's values, but today, perhaps more than ever, censorship is primarily used by authoritarian governments, religions, democracies, and even corporations as a means of retaining power. The examinations in this book of censorship history and current censor­ship in the United States, China, Egypt, Russia, and Zimbabwe reveal many of the methods by which censorship has been and continues to be implemented. They also consider the various strategies against censorship that are employed by citizens and organizations, sometimes successfully, often not.

Questionnaire:

• Explain more about book burning and censorship.