Burning Books

כריכה קדמית
McFarland, 2006 - 233 עמודים
For over 2000 years, book burners have laid their torches to millions of books condemned as heretical, blasphemous, immoral, obscene, subversive or seditious. Books have been reduced to ashes in church yards, college yards, school furnaces, public squares and city streets. The goals of the book burners have been to extirpate history, to intimidate and stamp out opposition, to create solidarity, and to cleanse society of controversial ideas. Too often, book burning foreshadows violence against those who originated or shared the ideas. This work provides a detailed account of book burning worldwide over the past 2000 years. (Book burning is meant literally, not as a figurative reference to book banning.) The book burners are identified, along with the works they deliberately set aflame. An important aspect of this study is its examination of the metaphoric language that "justified" the destruction; books being burned were “tares,” “pestilence,” “plagues,” “cancers,” and “poison.” Such language is a central part to the control the burners hope to exercise over those who might otherwise read the books and become part of the exchange of ideas. Also considered is the primeval pull of the book burning ritual, which in its simplicity leads to the destruction of ideas and the uniformity of thought most often associated with totalitarian regimes.

מתוך הספר

תוכן

Preface
1
The Magic of Books and Fire
19
Burning BlasphemousHeretical Books
33
Burning SeditiousSubversive Books
140
Burning ObsceneImmoral Books
181
Conclusion
206
Bibliography
213
Index
227
זכויות יוצרים

מהדורות אחרות - הצג הכל

מונחים וביטויים נפוצים

מידע על המחבר (2006)

Award winner Haig Bosmajian is professor emeritus in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, Seattle. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

מידע ביבליוגרפי