'Book burning' is the practice of
ceremoniously destroying by fire one or more copies of a
book or other written material. In modern times, other forms of media, such as
phonograph records,
video tapes, and
CDs have also been ceremoniously burned, torched, or shredded. The practice, usually carried out in public, is generally motivated by
moral,
religious, or
political objections to the material. Books can be also destroyed in secret, like millions of books in the former
Communist Eastern Bloc.
Some particular cases of book burning are long and traumatically remembered - because the books destroyed were irreplaceable and their loss constituted a severe damage to cultural heritage, and/or because this instance of book burning has become emblematic of a harsh and oppressive regime.
Such were the destruction of the
Library of Alexandria, the
Burning of books and burying of scholars under China's
Qin Dynasty, the destruction of Mayan codices by Spanish invaders, and in more recent times the book burnings by the Nazis.
Other cases are celebrated, as a triumph of righteousness. Such is the bas-relief by
Giovanni Battista Maini of ''The Burning of Heretical Books'' over a side door on the façade of
Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.
[1]
Historical background
From
China's 3rd century BCE
Qin Dynasty to the present day, the burning of books has a long history as a tool wielded by authorities both
secular and
religious, in efforts to suppress
dissenting or
heretical views that are perceived as posing a threat to the prevailing order.
When books are ordered collected by the authorities and disposed of in private, it may not be ''book burning'', strictly speaking — but the destruction of cultural and intellectual heritage is the same.
According to scholar
Elaine Pagels, "In AD 367,
Athanasius, the zealous bishop of
Alexandria... issued an Easter letter in which he demanded that
Egyptian monks destroy all such
unacceptable writings, except for those he specifically listed as 'acceptable' even 'canonical' — a list that constitutes the present 'New Testament'". Although Pagels cites Athanasius's Paschal letter (letter 39) for 367 CE, there is no order for monks to destroy heretical works contained in that letter
[1].
Thus, heretical texts do not turn up as
palimpsests, washed clean and overwritten, as
pagan ones do; many early
Christian texts have been as thoroughly "lost" as if they had been publicly burnt.
In his
1821 play, ''Almansor'', the German writer
Heinrich Heine — referring to the burning of the
Muslim holy book, the
Koran, during the
Spanish Inquisition — famously wrote:
'"Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings."' (''"Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen."'')
One century later, Heine's books were among the thousands of
volumes that were torched by the
Nazis in
Berlin's
Opernplatz in an outburst that did, in fact, foreshadow the
blazing ovens of
the Holocaust.
Symbol of the "New York Society for the Suppression of Vice", advocating book-burning.
's
New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, founded in 1873, inscribed book burning on its seal, as a worthy goal to be achieved (see illustration at right). Comstock's total accomplishment in a long and influential career is estimated to have been the destruction of some 15 tons of books, 284,000 pounds of
plates for printing such 'objectionable' books, and nearly 4,000,000 pictures. All of this material was defined as "
lewd" by Comstock's very broad definition of the term — which he and his associates successfully lobbied the
United States Congress to incorporate in the
Comstock Law.
The
Ray Bradbury novel ''
Fahrenheit 451'' is about a fictional future society that has institutionalized book burning. In
Orwell's ''
Nineteen Eighty-Four'', the euphemistically-called "
memory hole" is used to burn any book or written text which is inconvenient to the regime, and there is mention of "the total destruction of all books published before
1960".
The advent of the digital age has resulted in an immense collection of written work being cataloged exclusively or primarily in digital form. The intentional deletion or removal of these works has been often referred to as a new form of book burning.
This reference is more closely related to the relationship between book burning and censorship than the systematic and categorical elimination of a particular body of literary work. This particular application of the term is often misused by embittered content creators who do not understand the rights of a hosting service or community to select and censor content located on its own services or within its community borders.
Book burning does not refer to individual censorship, but rather to an act of mass censorship, and the term is applied appropriately only when these types of digital cases are suspected to be epidemic or widespread and systemic.
Chronology of notable book burning incidents
Headings indicate the books or libraries burned, with perpetrator and/or location in parentheses.
Chinese Philosophy books (by Emperor Qin Shi Huang)
Following the advice of minister
Li Si, Emperor
Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all philosophy books and history books from states other than
Qin — beginning in 213 BC. This was followed by the live burial of a large number of intellectuals who did not comply with the state dogma. (Referred to as
"Burning of the books and burial of the scholars").
The damage to Chinese culture was compounded during the revolts which ended the short rule of
Qin Er Shi, Qin Shi Huang's son. The imperial
palace and state
archives were burned, destroying many of the remaining written records that had been spared by the father.
Sorcery scrolls (by Early converts to Christianity at Ephesus)
According to the
New Testament book of
Acts, early converts to
Christianity in
Ephesus who had previously practiced sorcery burned their scrolls: ''"A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas."'' (Acts 19:19,
NIV)
[2]
Epicurus' book (at Paphlagonia)
''Established beliefs'' of
Epicurus was burned in a
Paphlagonian marketplace by order of the charlatan Alexander, supposed prophet of Ascapius ca
160 (
Lucian,
''Alexander the false prophet'')
Egyptian alchemy texts (by Diocletian)
The
Egyptian alchemical books of
Alexandria were burnt by the emperor
Diocletian in
292.
Christian books (by Diocletian)
Christian books by a decree of emperor
Diocletian in
303, calling for an increased
persecution of Christians.
Books of Arianism (after Council of Nicaea)
The books of
Arius and his followers, after the
first Council of Nicaea (
325), for
heresy.
The Sibylline Books (by Flavius Stilicho)
The
Sibylline Books were burnt by Flavius
Stilicho (died
408).
Egyptian non-conforming Christian texts (by Athanasius)
According to
Elaine Pagels, in
367,
Athanasius,
bishop of
Alexandria called in all non-conforming texts from the Christian
monasteries of Egypt during his Paschal letter for that year. No such order is found in that work.
Writings of Priscillian
In
383, the theologian
Priscillian of
Ávila became the first Christian to be executed by fellow-Christians as a
heretic. Some (though not all) of his writings were condemned as heretical and burned. For many centuries they were considered irreversibly lost - but surviving copies were discovered in the 19th century.
Repeated destruction of Alexandria libraries
The library of the
Serapeum in Alexandria was trashed, burned and looted,
392, at the decree of
Theophilus of Alexandria, who was ordered so by
Theodosius I. Around the same time,
Hypatia was murdered. One of the largest destruction of books occurred at the
Library of Alexandria, traditionally held to be in
640, however the precise years are unknown as are whether the fires were intentional or accidental.
[3][4]
See ''
Library of Alexandria: Destruction of the Library''
Etrusca Disciplina
''Etrusca Disciplina'', the
Etruscan books of cult and divination, collected and burned in the 5th century.
Nestorius' books (by Theodosius II)
The books of
Nestorius, after an edict of
Theodosius II, for
heresy (
435).
Qur'anic texts (ordered by the 3rd Caliph, Uthman)
Main articles: Origin and development of the Qur'an#First standardization of Qur'an
Uthmān ibn ‘Affān, the third
Caliph of Islam after
Muhammad, who is credited with overseeing the creation of the authoritative written version of the
Qur'an, also ordered the destruction of competing versions, circa
650 CE. Although the Qur'an had mainly been propagated through oral transmission, it also had already been recorded in at least three
codices, most importantly the codex of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud in
Kufa, and the codex of Ubayy ibn Ka'b in
Syria. Sometime between 650 and 656 CE, a committee appointed by Uthman is believed to have produced a singular version in seven copies, and Uthman is said to have "sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt."
[5]
Competing prayer books (at Toledo)
After the conquest of
Toledo, Spain (1085) by the king of Castile, it was being disputed on whether
Iberian Christians should follow the foreign
Roman rite or the traditional
Mozarabic rite. After other
ordeals, it was submitted to the
trial by fire: One book for each rite was thrown into a fire. The Toledan book was little damaged after the Roman one was consumed.
Henry Jenner comments in the
Catholic Encyclopedia:
[2] "No one who has seen a
Mozarabic manuscript with its extraordinarily solid
vellum, will adopt any hypothesis of Divine Interposition here."
Abelard forced to burn his own book (at Soissons)
The provincial
synod held at
Soissons (in France) in
1121 condemned the teachings of the famous
theologian Peter Abelard as
heresy; he was forced to burn his own book before being shut up inside the
convent of St. Medard at Soissons.
Samanid Dynasty Library
The Royal Library of the
Samanid Dynasty was burned at the turn of the 11th century during the Turkic invasion from the east.
Avicenna was said to have tried to save the precious manuscripts from the fire as the flames engulfed the collection.
Destruction of Cathar texts (Languedoc region of France)
During the
13th century, the
Catholic Church waged a brutal campaign against the
Cathars of
Languedoc (smaller numbers also lived elsewhere in Europe), culminating in the
Albigensian Crusade. Nearly every
Cathar text that could be found was destroyed, in an effort to completely extirpate their
heretical beliefs; only a few are known to have survived.
Maimonides' philosophy (at Montpellier)
In
1233 Maimonides' "
Guide for the Perplexed" was burnt at
Montpellier, Southern France (see
#Medieval burning of Jewish Literature).
The Talmud (at Paris)
In
1242, French crown has burned all
Talmud copies in Paris, after the book was "charged" and "found guilty" in the
Paris trial sometimes called "the Paris debate") (see
#Medieval burning of Jewish Literature).
"Burning books as if, burning a whole in society" -Unknown
Wycliffe's books (at Prague)
In
1410 John Wycliffe's books were burnt by the illiterate
Prague archbishop
Zbyněk Zajic z Házmburka in the court of his palace in
Lesser Town of Prague to hinder the spread of
Jan Hus's teaching
Non-Catholic books (by Torquemada)
In the 1480s
Tomas Torquemada promoted the burning of non-Catholic literature, especially Jewish Talmuds and, after the final defeat of the Moors at
Granada in
1492, Arabic books also.
Decameron, Ovid and other "lewd" books (by Savonarola)
Main articles: Bonfire of the Vanities
In
1497, followers of the
Italian priest
Girolamo Savonarola collected and publicly burned
pornography, lewd pictures,
pagan books, gaming tables, cosmetics, copies of
Boccaccio's Decameron, and all the works of
Ovid which could be found in
Florence.
Over a million Arabic and Hebrew books (at Andalucia)
In 1499 or 1500, in Andalucia,
Spain, over a million Arabic and Hebrew books from one of the richest collections in history were burned on the orders of
Cisneros,
Archbishop of Granada (See: Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, London: White Lion, 1965, p. 98.) Many of the poetic works were allegedly destroyed on account of their symbolized
homoeroticism. (See: Erskine Lane, tr. "In Praise of Boys: Moorish Poems from Al-Andalus," 1975).
Tyndale's New Testament (in England)
In October
1526 William Tyndale's English translation of the ''
New Testament'' was burned in London by Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of London.
Books being burned.
Servetus's writings (burned with their author at Geneva)
In 1553,
Servetus was burned as an heretic at the order of the city council of Geneva on a remark in his translation of
Ptolemy's ''Geography''. "Around his waist were tied a large bundle of manuscript and a thick octavo printed book", his ''Christianismi Restitutio,'' three copies of which have survived
[6].
Maya sacred books (at Yucatan)
1562 Fray Diego de Landa, acting bishop of the Yucatan, threw into the fires the sacred books of the
Maya.
[3]
Luther's Bible translation (in Germany)
Martin Luther's German translation of the
Bible was burned in Germany in
1624 by order of the Pope.
Hobbes books (at Oxford University)
In
1683 several books by
Thomas Hobbes and other authors were burnt in Oxford University.
Anti-Wilhelm Tell tract (at Canton of Uri)
The
1760 tract by
Simeon Uriel Freudenberger from
Luzern, arguing that
Wilhelm Tell was a myth and the acts attributed to him had not happened in reality, was publicly burnt in
Altdorf, capital of the
Swiss canton of
Uri - where, according to the legend,
William Tell shot the apple from his son's head.
Religious libraries (by Robespierre)
In
1793 Robespierre ordered the destruction by fire of religious libraries, as well as the burning of those books defending or glorifying
royalism or the
French Kings. The books were considered "inimical towards reformed France".
Early braille books (at Paris)
In
1842, officials at the school for the blind in Paris France, were ordered by its new director, Armand Dufau, to burn books written in the new
braille code. After every braille book at the institute that could be found was burned, supporters of the code's inventor,
Louis Braille, rebelled against Dufau by continuing to use the code, and braille was eventually restored at the school.
Anti-Communist books (by Bolsheviks)
In
1917 in
Russia the
Bolsheviks ordered the destructions of all books contrary to Communism, including many religious works, works in favour of the
Czarist history, works on nationalism, works on freedom and economic profit.
"Valley of the Squinting Windows" (at Delvin, Ireland)
In
1918 the
Valley of the Squinting Windows in
Delvin,
Ireland. The book criticised the village's inhabitants for being overly concerned with their image towards neighbours.
Jewish, anti-Nazi and "degenerate" books (by the Nazis)
:''Full article available at
Nazi book burnings''
In 1933, Nazis burned works of Jewish authors, and other works considered "un-German", at the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin.
The works of
Jewish authors and other so-called "degenerate" books were burnt by the
Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s.
Richard Euringer, director of the libraries in
Essen, identified 18,000 works deemed not to correspond with Nazi ideology, which were publicly burned.
★ On
May 10,
1933 on the
Opernplatz in
Berlin,
S.A. and Nazi youth groups burned around 20,000 books from the
Institut für Sexualwissenschaft and the
Humboldt University; including works by
Heinrich Heine,
Thomas Mann,
Karl Marx,
Erich Maria Remarque, and
H.G. Wells. Student groups throughout Germany also carried out their own book burnings on that day and in the following weeks.
Erich Kästner wrote an ironic account (published only after the fall of Nazism) of having witnessed the burning of his own books on that occasion.
Theodore Dreiser's works (at Warsaw, Indiana)
1935 the library trustees of
Warsaw, Indiana ordered the burning of all the library's works by
Theodore Dreiser [7].
Jorge Amado's novels (by Brazilian dictatorship)
In
1937 the dictatorial regime of
Getulio Vargas in
Brazil ordered the public burning of the novels ''
O País do Carnaval'', ''
Cacau'' and ''
Mar Morto'' by the noted author
Jorge Amado, at the time an active member of the
Brazilian Communist Party.
Comic books (at Binghamton, New York)
In
1948, at
Binghamton,
New York children - overseen by priests, teachers, and parents - publicly burned around 2000
comic books.
Judaica collection at Birobidzhan (by Stalin)
As part of
Stalin's efforts to stamp out
Jewish culture in the
Soviet Union in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the
Judaica collection in the library of
Birobidzhan, capital of the
Jewish Autonomous Oblast on the Chinese border, was burned.
Communist and "fellow traveller" books (by Senator McCarthy)
In
1953 Senator
Joseph McCarthy recited before his subcommittee and the press a list of supposedly pro-communist authors whose works his aide
Roy Cohn found in
State Department libraries in Europe. The State Department bowed to McCarthy and ordered its overseas librarians to remove from their shelves "material by any controversial persons, Communists,
fellow travelers, etc." Some libraries burned the newly-forbidden books. Shortly after this, President
Eisenhower urged Americans: "Do not join the book burners.
… Do not be afraid to go in your library and read every book."
Wilhelm Reich's publications (by U.S. Food and Drug Administration)
Noted
psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich was prosecuted in 1954, following an
investigation by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration in connection with his use of
orgone accumulators. Reich refused to defend himself, and a Federal judge ordered all of his
orgone energy equipment and publications to be seized and destroyed. In June 1956, Federal agents
burned many of the books at Reich's estate near
Rangeley, Maine. Later that year, and in March 1960, an additional 6 tons of Reich's books, journals and papers were burned in a public
incinerator in New York. Reich died of heart failure while in Federal prison in November 1957.
Library of writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer (by Suharto Regime)
Following the 1965
military coup which brought
Suharto to power in
Indonesia, the left-wing writer
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was thrown into prison. His entire library was burned, including extensive materials which he had collected in preparatory research for a new book. Toer nevertheless composed the book, ''
This Earth of Mankind'', from memory while imprisoned: deprived of so much as a pencil, he narrated his text orally to fellow prisoners. (By 2005 the book had been published and translated into 33 languages).
Burning of Jaffna library
Main articles: Burning of Jaffna library
In May 1981 a mob composed of thugs and plainclothes police officers went on a rampage in minority
Tamil-dominated northern
Jaffna,
Sri Lanka, and
burned down the Jaffna Public Library. At least 95,000 volumes — the second largest library collection in
South Asia — were destroyed, including a very rare collection of ancient palm leaf volumes.
[4]
Anti-Pinochet Dictatorship books (at Valparaiso)
In February
1987 the
Chilean Interior Ministry admitted that 15,000 copies of the Spanish edition of were impounded and burned on
November 28,
1986, in
Valparaiso following direct orders from
Augusto Pinochet.
The Satanic Verses (in the United Kingdom)
The 1988 publication of the novel ''
The Satanic Verses'', by
Salman Rushdie, provoked furious by
Muslims, many of whom considered it extremely
blasphemous. In the
United Kingdom, bookburnings were staged in the cities of
Bolton and
Bradford. In addition, five U.K. bookstores selling the novel were the target of bombings, and two bookstores in
Berkeley, California were
firebombed.
Bible Burning (by artist Mark Pauline)
In August
1990 ArtPark, a state-sponsored arts festival in
Lewiston, N.Y., cancelled the perforamance "Survival Research Lab" by artist
Mark Pauline when it turned out he intended "to cover a sputtering Rube Goldberg spaceship with numerous Bibles" that would "serve as thermal protective shields" and be burned to ashes in the course of the performance.(
San Francisco Chronicle, August 14, 1990,
[8]).
Oriental Institute Library, Sarajevo (by Serb nationalists)
In
1992, during the
Bosnian Civil War,
Serb nationalist forces attacked the Oriental Institute (Orijentalni institut) in
Sarajevo with
incendiary grenades. The entire collection of books and
manuscripts was burned in the largest single act of book-burning in modern history.
[9].
Books "contrary to the teachings of God" (at Grande Cache, Alberta)
In the 1990s congregants of the
Full Gospel Assembly in
Grande Cache,
Alberta, Canada burned books with ideas in them that they did not agree with, or that they deemed to contain ideas contrary to the teachings of God.
Books of Falun Dafa Teachings
According to the UN 2004 report, authorities seized and publicly destroyed hundreds of thousands of Falun Dafa books and materials.
books were burned in 1999 by the Chinese Communist Party. The books were teaching the principles of the
Falun Dafa practice. According to the practice, they are Zhen-Shan-Ren, or Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
[5] The government of the PRC alleged Falun Gong of being an "evil cult" which has "brought instability to the country".
[6][7][8][9]
Abu Nuwas homoerotic poetry (by Egyptian Ministry of Culture)
In January 2001 the
Egyptian Ministry of Culture burned 6,000 books of
homoerotic poetry by
Abu Nuwas, after pressure from
Islamic fundamentalists.
Harry Potter books (at various American cities)
There have been several incidents of
Harry Potter books being burned, including those directed by churches at
Alamogordo,
New Mexico,
Charleston, South Carolina, and
Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
[10] See
Controversy over Harry Potter.
Anti-copyright anthology "Copy Me" (by Piratbyrån)
Piratbyrån, a group of Swedish anti-copyright activists, in 2005 published the anthology ''Copy Me'' with their own writings. At
Walpurgis Night the last of April 2007, as they declared that "the so-called file-sharing debate has served its time"
[11] they burnt the remaining books on the mountain
Vårbergstoppen in
South Stockholm, while reading a declaration motivating the
ritual.
[12]
Inventory of Prospero's Books (by proprietors Tom Wayne and W.E. Leathem)
On
May 27, 2007, Tom Wayne and W.E. Leathem, the proprietor of Prospero's Books, a used book store in
Kansas City,
Mo., publicly burned a portion of his inventory to protest society's increasing indifference to the printed word. The protest was interrupted by the Kansas City Fire Department on the grounds that Wayne & Leathem had failed to obtain the required permits.
[10]
For a different motive: Guru Granth Sahib
An example of ceremonial book burning with a completely different motive is that, in the
Sikh religion, any copies of their sacred book
Guru Granth Sahib which are too badly damaged to be used, and any printer's waste which has any of its text on, are cremated with a similar ceremony as cremating a deceased man.
★
[11]: A copy damaged in a fire
★
[12] A copy damaged in a fire
★
[13]: 4 copies damaged in
New Orleans by the flood caused by
Hurricane Katrina
★
Guru Granth Sahib#Printing: Printer's waste
★
[14]
Medieval burning of Jewish Literature
The burnings of Hebrew books were initiated by Pope
Gregory IX. He persuaded French King
Louis IX to burn some 12,000 copies of the
Talmud in Paris in
1243. He was followed by subsequent Popes. The most ferocious haters of
Judaism and
Jewish books among them were
Innocent IV (1243-1254),
Clement IV (1256-1268),
John XXII (1316-1334),
Paul IV (1555-1559),
Pius V (1566-1572) and
Clement VIII (1592-1605). They almost succeeded in stamping out Jewish books entirely. Yet Jews continued to pen their holy books without cease, and once the printing press was invented, the Church found it impossible to destroy entire printed editions of the Talmud and other sacred books.
Johann Gutenberg, the German who invented the printing press around 1450, certainly helped stamp out the effectiveness of further book burnings. The tolerant (for its time) policies of
Venice made it a center for the printing of
Jewish books (as of books in general), yet the Talmud was publicly burned in 1553 and there was a lesser known burning of Hebrew book in 1568.
[13]
In fiction
★ The first part of ''
Don Quixote'' has a scene in which the priest and the housekeeper of the eponymous knight go through the
chivalry books that have turned him mad. In a kind of
auto de fe, they burn most of them. The comments of the priest express the literary tastes of the author, though he offers some sharp criticisms of Cervantes' works as well. It is notable that he saves ''
Tirant lo Blanch''.
★ In Part II of the play ''Tamburlaine'', by
Christopher Marlowe,
Tamburlaine (the protagonist) burns a copy of the
Quran after having conquered
Asia Minor and
Egypt. His book-burning and declaration of independence from any deity leads to his fatal illness, and subsequently the end of the play.
★ In the introduction of the
1967 Simon and Schuster book club editon of ''
Fahrenheit 451'',
Ray Bradbury implies that the Nazi book burnings drove him to write the short story/novella ''the Fireman'' which was the precursor along with the foundation for his novel ''Fahrenheit 451'' (451 °F being the temperature at which paper
autoignites), stating "It follows then that when Hitler burned a book I felt it as keenly, please forgive me, as his killing a human, for in the long sum of history they are one in the same flesh."
★ In one episode of ''
The Simpsons'',
Lisa Simpson sees a Book-Mobile being driven by
Reverend Lovejoy, however the letters behind a tree reveal that it actually reads Book-Burning-Mobile.
★ In "
Anne of Green Gables", Anne watches in horror as her caretaker burns her book containing the poem "
Lady of Shallot" as punishment for reading instead of doing her chores.
★ In the ''
Myst'' series of computer games and books, the only way to destroy the link to an Age is to destroy its Descriptive Book, usually by burning it.
★ In the film ''
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'',
Indiana Jones journeys to Berlin in order to retrieve his father's diary, which gives information about finding the
Holy Grail. He retrieves it during a Nazi book burning rally (although it was not targeted for burning itself). At another point,
his father makes a comment to a Nazi interrogator: "
Goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them."
★ In the future depicted in
Brian Stableford's "
The Halcyon Drift", one of the leading planets in the Galaxy is "New Alexandria", whose inhabitants are dedicated to the preservation and extension of knowledge, and are brought up to regard the destruction of books as the most heinous of deeds. Nevertheless, a protagonist agrees to help the Khor-Monsa, an alien species, in destroying books and records of their remote ancestors which were found in a drifing spaceship - since the books contained a shameful secret whose publication might have led to the present Khor-Monsa losing their social status and becoming discriminated.
★ In an episode of
Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, the townspeople burn some of the books from Dr. Quinn's library.
★ The
Crusade episode
The Needs of Earth depicts a world that has burned its entire cultural heritage - all art, music, and literature - and hunts the person who has the last remaining copies.
★ The 2002 film
Equilibrium depicts a
Dystopian society which has eliminated
human emotion, and burned all cultural influences that can cause emotion.
★ In the 2004 film ''
The Day after Tomorrow'', to avoid freezing to death, the main character suggests burning books to survive, much to the horror of two people.
Reference
1. Noted in Touring Club Italiano, ''Roma e Dintorni'' 1965:344.
2. Mozarabic Rite, by Henry Jenner in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
3. Baldwin, Neil: ''Legends of the Plumed Serpent: Biography of a Mexican God'', HarperCollins Canada, 1998 ISBN 978-1891620034
4. www.ifla.org/IV/ifla72/papers/119-Knuth-en.pdf
5. http://www.falundafa.org/eng/index.htm - Second paragraph of the introduction on the FalunDafa.org English website
6. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6496387179590312647&q=nine+commentaries+duration%3Along at 38min:49sec;
7. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2786130251132064178&q=falun+dafa at 5min 40 seconds;
8. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/02/080r-110299-idx.html "
China's Rule of Law"
9. http://clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/8/27/chronicle.html A Chronicle of Major Events of Falun Dafa
10. http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/book-burnings-potter-tech-media_cz_ds_books06_1201burn.html
11. nettime.freeflux.net/blog/archive/2007/05/05/nettime-four-shreddings-and-a-funeral.html
12. www.piratbyran.org/walpurgis/
13. Paul F. Grendler, "The Destruction of Hebrew Books in Venice, 1568" ''Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research'' '45' (1978), pp. 103-130.
See also
★
Banned books
★
Censorship
★
Fahrenheit 451
★
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![Daily flights from NYC to Mont Tremblant\](images/articles/thumbs/nytremblantthumb.jpg "Daily flights from NYC to Mont Tremblant\")
