Book Burning: A Brief History of Bibliocide
The mere thought of setting fire to books is enough to ignite rage in most book lovers’ hearts. If you’ve seen images of book burnings in Nazi Germany, for example, you know the disgusted feeling such photos elicit, even though those acts represent the least of their perpetrators’ atrocities. But why are books even burned to begin with? How is it that burning words on paper has become a symbol for intolerance and hatred? In this post, we’ll explore the history of book burning and the various reasons why books have been destroyed on a wide scale. Why Did Book Burning Start? When you think of book burning, images of Nazi Germany and destruction of the Fahrenheit 451 variety probably come to mind first. And indeed, that era marks one of the worst and most memorable campaigns of book burning that was orchestrated as a means of Nazi propaganda. But that was far from the first—or last—time that books, artifacts, and other stores of knowledge were intentionally destroyed. Throughout...
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