{"product_id":"on-book-banning-or-how-the-new-censorship-consensus-trivializes-art-and-undermines-democracy-field-notes-9","title":"On Book Banning by Ira Wells","description":"\u003ch2\u003eOn Book Banning: Or, How the New Censorship Consensus Trivializes Art and Undermines Democracy by Ira Wells\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eField Notes Book Series\u003c\/em\u003e, Book-9\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA lively, accessible survey of literary censorship through the ages. \u003cstrong\u003eThe freedom to read is under attack. \u003c\/strong\u003eThere are, today, more efforts to ban books from libraries than ever before.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe supposed \"dangers\" posed by books including \u003cem\u003eThe Handmaid's Tale\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eGender Queer\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eHuckleberry Finn\u003c\/em\u003e, and the works of Dr. Seuss—leading children down a path of sexual deviance, or harming them with racist language or non-inclusive narratives--fuel the puritanical zeal of De Santis Republicans and progressive educators alike.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eOn Book Banning\u003c\/em\u003e argues that today's culture warriors proceed from a misunderstanding of literature as instrumental to the pursuit of their ideological agendas.\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn treating libraries as sites of contagion and exposure, censors are warping our children's relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is cancellation or outright expurgation. \u003cem\u003eOn Book Banning\u003c\/em\u003e provides a lively, accessible survey of literary censorship through the ages—from the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome, to the \u003cstrong\u003eCatholic Church's attempts to tamp down religious dissent and scientific innovation,\u003c\/strong\u003e to state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ literature in the 1980s and beyond.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThroughout, Ira Wells demonstrates how today's book bans stem from the ineradicable human impulse toward social control. \u003c\/strong\u003eIn a whistle-stop tour of landmark legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, we discover that the freedom to read and publish is the aberration in human history, and that censorship and restriction have been the rule.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization, \u003cem\u003eOn Book Banning\u003c\/em\u003e is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who reject the conflation of art and propaganda, for whom books remain sacred vessels of our shared humanity, and who will always insist upon reading for ourselves.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bust-Down Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50353245192507,"sku":"1771966637","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0855\/2077\/7531\/files\/9781771966634.jpg?v=1776498739","url":"https:\/\/bustdownbooks.com\/products\/on-book-banning-or-how-the-new-censorship-consensus-trivializes-art-and-undermines-democracy-field-notes-9","provider":"Bust-Down Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}