An American Adventure in Bookburning: In the Style of 1918

Bookburning is "in" these days. The "in" thing to deplore, that is. Unfortunately, there are enough instances of censorship in the contemporary world to justify real concern as well as fake. And there have been enough in history, including America's recent history. You would be well-advised, however, not to rely on the American "conscience media", with its ritual Banned Books Weeks and sporadic gush of speeches/readings/articles supposedly deploring all censorship, for the true tale of past and continuing suppression of books in America. From them, you might get the impression that all bookburners are "right-wingers" and/or religious fanatics, itching to get that copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover off the library shelf. (Today, Dr. Seuss, Gone With The Wind, Song of the South and so many more). But have there been, are there - could there possibly be? - liberal bookburners in America? Was there indeed a time when the paragons of "the open mind" themselves started telling people just how far, and no further, they could properly open their minds? And does censorship in America, to be effective, require outright bans, or just.the liberal nod? In this book, one of America's greatest social historians welcomes you to a disturbing and ludicrous chapter in American intellectual and political history. It is the first treatment ever of the American government's - and, as it developed, the mainstream American medias' - attempt during World War I to prevent the citizenry from reading certain books about the origins of that war and related issues. From the starting point of the Secretary of War's little-known directive of August 31, 1918, which banned many titles as "German propaganda" from Army camp libraries, James J. Martin takes us on a grand tour of the American book publishing inquisition of those days and since. A special treat is the inclusion, as an appendix, of Professor Martin's celebrated 1954 essay, A Beginner's Manual for Apprentice Bookburners, republished here in its complete, original form. Read it, and you'll learn about some real ''underground books" and some of the real socio-political controversies of our time.