Top 10 Banned Books of the 20th Century

reply to post by LiveForever8


I don't understand, I've read every single book here, and so have my children....Who banned these books????

Well, everyone got what they wanted. Any kid anywhere in the world, with an Internet connection can download all the banned books ever written, as well as all the hardcore porn they want.

Censorship is now practiced differently. The Saudi government has been regularly taking publishers of books and articles naming names of bankers and princes in their country that support terrorism through front charities.

A dozen books and many articles have been kept from getting into print or even taken off shelves by lawsuits of libel that would destroy any publisher financially if they pursued their rights.

There are other lesser known examples where newspapers and magazines as well as book publishers have declined to bring out something knowing they will have a multimillion dollar lawsuit to contend with.

So freedom of speech is still being suppressed. Censorship lives. It's now moved to the political sphere.


Mike

I don't really see it as the censoring of books, that would be far too simplistic, it's the censoring of ideas - good or bad ideas, it's still wrong.

This is a great thread and I'm happy to say I've read the majority of the books on the list, some have been truly inspirational and life changing for me.

reply to post by LiveForever8


I'm a lover of books and a good story. I find the thought of censoring a book because it runs counter to someone's beliefs or "morals" disturbing, to say the least. There are plenty of books proliferating ideas that I do not like or agree with but I don't want the works censored.
Censorship, in this regard, is even more bothersome as it takes more work to read a book than to watch tv. You must obtain a book and then read it which requires more time. If you don't like the book don't read it.
I'm not even sure why people feel it is their duty or it is the right thing to have a book censored.

Originally posted by LadySkadi
reply to post by LiveForever8

 

Wow! 8 of the 10 were mandatory reading in my high school English classes. I cannot believe this list... Yes, I would say there is an agenda at work, who's though and why are the questions...



[edit on 26-10-2009 by LadySkadi]

Stunned at that list! I too, read most of them in high school as part of our English class.

For a number of years I acted as a volunteer assistant in an elementary school library. I recall a furor erupting over the content of a book in the library's collection that featured an incorrigible adolescent protagonist. The staff were demanding that it be pulled from the shelves and having read the book myself, I jumped on the "let's censor it" bandwagon. Other books in the library were pulled from time to time for a variety of reasons ranging from inappropriate language issues to gratuitous violence.

I have come a full 180 since then. I have come to value the idea that whatever controversy a book may generate, the thinking that it generates is what is really important. It's better to discuss what is 'wrong' with a book than to remove it from public view and consumption.

This is particularly true of censorship within the education system. I'm troubled by the 'dumbing down' and 'cookie cutter' approach to North American education.

I, for one, am now convinced that filtering knowledge is rarely, if ever, a good thing.

reply to post by LiveForever8

No book should ever be banned they stretch and inform the mind.

One of my favourites is The History of Juliette by the Marquis de Sade and banned in Britain until 1983.


An interesting list of banned books by various countries -

en.wikipedia.org...

Censorship becomes complex. There is a notorious forgery, "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" a rewriting of a 19th Century fictional work by Russian Secret Police, attempting to portray Jews as world dominating plotters.

It has been published may times in editions presenting it as a historical work.

But do we want to allow agenda-driven false propaganda to be made available to the unsuspecting public and the young?


Mike

reply to post by odyseusz


(this isn't aimed at you, it's just a response to "Mien Kampf")

A little over a year ago, I was in a Half-Price Books (for those of you who don't know what a Half-Price Books is/don't live in the US, the stores basically sell books, movies, CDs, and other things at half price, just like the name suggests), and I came across a first edition of "Mien Kampf," in the antique section. It was in German, printed in Germany, everything. They had it listed at $75. I just so happened to have a 1/2 off coupon, and there was a sale that weekend for an extra 10% off your purchase. I sat there for ten minutes, debating with myself about if I wanted to spend the money or not. I do not speak any German, nor do I know any one who does, and I've never had the desire to read "Mien Kampf," but I was standing in front of an original copy of one of the most challenged books of the last half of the twentieth century. All that separated the two of us was a flimsy glass case.

The entire time I was staring at it, all I could think about was everything that this single book, something that was mere ink and paper, had caused in just that last 70 or so years. All I could think about was who might have read that copy, and how it managed to make it's way to a random Half-Price Books in Fort Worth, Texas. How this one book (that isn't even that long) had changed so many lives, how it had been read by so many people, how it had become so famous. My point is that I wanted to buy it just because of all of the controversy around it, and the impact that it had on history. Sure, I would have probably felt weird telling people that I had a really old copy in my book section, but I think it would have been worth it.

In the end, I didn't buy it.

I really wish I would have.

Well kinda misleading here. Many of these books were "banned" but that means they were not carried in libraries or taught in school. It was not like there were laws against these books. This thread kind of chronicles how times have changed and what is socially acceptable now vs then, not so much censorship.
Technically playboy hustler and many other publications are "banned" because i can't go into my library and pick them up.
Censorship is wrong and evil untill you catch your 6 year old watching porn or your 12 year old trying to make stuff from the anarchist cook book.

[edit on 27-10-2009 by zaiger]

I loved all of those books - a good example is "the gates of janus" by moors murderer ian brady.

There was outcry that he should be able to write.

I bought and read that book - it proved to me he should never be released as he feels no remorse and cannot be rehabilitated.

If you try and break through his pseudo-analysis of other serial killers, you really feel that he is in the best place for him and is actually in torment. He would rather be dead, than unable to get into the outside world to kill.

I think that book is very illustrative of the psychopath/sociopath - we needed that book to be written and published...

I cannot believe most of those books were subject to censorship...makes you wonder what has not reached the bookshelf so far...

There was a book banned by the post office mentioned in Whale.to that questioned the effrectiveness and safety of vaccinations and the motives of the 1976 swine flu vaccination pitch. It was banned by the post office and could not be sent in the mail because it "went against accepted medical practice" Now they are banning any remedies for swine flu that are not "approved".

great thread, and what an amazing list of books. I can't believe those could be banned, those are some of the best literary works out there. Atrocious.

The only books that come to mind when I think of banning books is possibly HITMAN, and THE ANARCHISTS COOKBOOK.

Moreso the hitman than the AC. Although I don't think either should be banned, IF you were to ban any book those would be the first to pop into my mind as they are basically just books on telling you how to carry out crimes, murders, make bombs and what have you.

But then what do we have to do, go and ban every book that teaches people how to hunt, defend themselves ect?

No book should be banned imo, it falls right under the freedom of speech basically. Sure publishers can decide to pull a bbook as they did with HITMAN, but all out banning of a book, no..., I don't like it at all.

Interesting list but like a lot of posters I read most of those books in High School.

The real censorship today seems to be in public libraries. Our local library has all ten of the so called banned books but not Heinlein's racially controversial Farnham's Freehold. The overseers of public decency accept most forms of perversity today but not racism unless the racist is an overtly noxious figure.

Don’t get me wrong – I find the subject matter and attitude expressed in Farnham's Freehold objectionable but part of maturation process has to be exposure to nice people saying nasty things. How else do people learn to distinguish between speaker and message?

I'm old. When I was growing up I practically lived in libraries.

With the Internet now, do kids really still use them much?


M

Originally posted by mmiichael

I'm old. When I was growing up I practically lived in libraries.

With the Internet now, do kids really still use them much?

Funny that you ask that. I hadn't been to the public library in forever and went earlier in the year to study for exams. About 1/3 of the people there were indigents looking for a place to rest indoors.
Same library but much different than I remembered it being years before.

Originally posted by jokei
I don't really see it as the censoring of books, that would be far too simplistic, it's the censoring of ideas - good or bad ideas, it's still wrong.

This is a great thread and I'm happy to say I've read the majority of the books on the list, some have been truly inspirational and life changing for me.

agreed 100%.


ps- at least Im proud to say that i have read a couple of those books on the "ban" list...

Originally posted by really

Originally posted by mmiichael

I'm old. When I was growing up I practically lived in libraries.

With the Internet now, do kids really still use them much?

Funny that you ask that. I hadn't been to the public library in forever and went earlier in the year to study for exams. About 1/3 of the people there were indigents looking for a place to rest indoors.
Same library but much different than I remembered it being years before.

I notice bums (apologies to any reading this) prefer big chain bookstores to libraries now. Less so since they caught on and took away the comfortable chairs.

So who does go to the library these days?


M

reply to post by mmiichael


The little libraries here don't ever really seem to have many bums (the ladies that work the counter are too b****y, anyways), but I do see them in the larger ones, like the one downtown. For the most part, they tend to just hang out around the entrance, and generally keep to themselves.

I haven't seen any in the bookstores, or at least any that are obvious bums.

And yes, I do go to and use the library (and I'm under 25). I always look at the Conspiracy Theory and History books, not too many people are in those sections.

I've got a good banned book.. This one isn't even allowed to be discussed at ATS.

"The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross"



" In 1953 John Marco Allegro was invited to become the first British representative on the international team working on the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls in Jordan. The following year he was appointed assistant lecturer in Comparative Semitic Philology at Manchester, and held a succession of lectureships there until he resigned in 1970 to become a full-time writer. In 1961 he was made Honorary Adviser on the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Jordanian government.

Allegro's thirteen books include The Dead Sea Scrolls (1956), The Treasure of the Copper Scroll (1960), The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979) as well as Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan vol. V (1968) and articles in academic journals such as the Journal of Biblical Literature, Palestine Exploration Quarterly and Journal of Semitic Studies [1], and in the popular press.

It is suggested that Allegro believed the Dead Sea Scrolls raised issues that concerned everyone. It wasn't just a matter of dusty manuscripts and disputed translations. Rather, the story of the scrolls raised questions about freedom of access to evidence, freedom of speech, and freedom to challenge orthodox religious views. Allegro believed that through understanding the origins of religion people could be freed from its bonds to think for themselves and take responsibility for their own judgments." - Wiki

Ironic.. A man that fought for "free access to evidence for all" would have his thoughts banned from a website that supposedly "Rallies against the status-quo"..

Ironic.. and sad..