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Book Burning: The Most Extreme and Tragic Attempt to Erase History
Some thoughts for Banned Books Week
We are in the middle of Banned Books Week in the United States, and hopefully everyone has taken time out from stalking Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s budding romance/PR stunt to hug a librarian and take some concrete action to combat the scourge of censorship. Much of the recent news coverage has focused on the attempts to ban any books with sexual or racial content, as these are the main drivers of the current would-be censors. Today, however, I want to focus on the ultimate form of censorship with regard to books, as well as its main cause.
There are many ways in which history can be altered, revised, and rewritten. Victors in war will write the history to their liking, myths will creep in over the centuries, and even the political correctness of our current day can cause the rewriting of the events of the past. Sometimes this revision is a good thing, and sometimes not. Throughout history, however, some have taken a more hands-on approach to shaping history in the image they prefer through a sadly successful method: the burning of books and libraries.
Book burning has existed for as long as the written word has existed, and the conflagration is almost always about one thing: controlling the historical narrative. The…
