Book censorship
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Many societies have banned certain books. This is a partial list of books which have been banned.
Various scriptures have been banned (and sometimes burned) at several points in history. The Bible, the Qur'an, and other religious scriptures have all been subjected to censorship and have been banned in various cities and countries. In Medieval Europe the Roman Catholic Church created a program that lasted until 1966 to deal with dissenting printed opinion; it was called the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (index of prohibited books). Over the years many books based on the scriptures have also been banned, such as Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You, which was banned in Russia for being anti-establishment.
Books deemed critical of the state or its interests are another common target for banning.
Books that deal with criminal matter have also been subjected to censorship. Small-press titles that have become infamous by being banned include The Anarchist Cookbook, E for Ecstasy, and Hit Man.
In the four-volume series Banned Books published by FactsOnFile in 1998, the volumes were divided by grounds for banning: political, religious, sexual and social. The first three are often cited together as taboo in polite conversation.
Notably, children's books that deal with death or other teenage angst or various crimes often find themselves banned perhaps because of parental worries about teenage suicide or copycat crimes. Many publications are targeted on the premise that children would be corrupted by reading them. This fear led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954.
Lists
- Censorship
- List of banned books
- List of authors banned during the Third Reich
- The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France
