Dangerous Ideas
A Brief History of Censorship in the West, from the Ancients to Fake News
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
This “engrossing history of censorship” is an urgent, timely read for our era of social media trolls, fake news, and free speech debates (The Economist).
How restricting speech continuously shapes our culture, props up authorities, and maintains class and gender disparities
Through compelling narrative, historian Eric Berkowitz reveals how drastically censorship has shaped our modern society. More than just a history of censorship, Dangerous Ideas illuminates the power of restricting speech; how it has defined states, ideas, and culture; and (despite how each of us would like to believe otherwise) how it is something we all participate in.
This engaging cultural history of censorship and thought suppression throughout the ages takes readers from the first Chinese emperor’s wholesale elimination of books, to Henry VIII’s decree of death for anyone who “imagined” his demise, and on to the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the volatile politics surrounding censorship of social media.
Highlighting the base impulses driving many famous acts of suppression, Berkowitz demonstrates the fragility of power and how every individual can act as both the suppressor and the suppressed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Berkowitz (Sex and Punishment) examines how censorship backfires in this thought-provoking account. He notes that although the ancient Romans tried to eradicate the memory of "egregious" wrongdoers such as Brutus and Nero by mutilating their images and banning the use of their names, their deeds remain well-known today. Censorship tends to run in cycles, according to Berkowitz—what's forbidden under one pope or government may be venerated or celebrated under the next. Other topics include the 1873 Comstock Act's ban on sending information about birth control through the mail, how the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988 inaugurated an era in which free speech "has been transformed from an inherent good into an inherent problem because of its potential for offense," and the Trump administration's efforts to censor data on climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic. Berkowitz segues fluidly between historical eras and marshals a plethora of intriguing case studies. Readers will be convinced that policing harmful rhetoric too aggressively "will cause worse mischief in the long run."
