Banned, Burned, and Still Read

Classic novels such as Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Nineteen Eighty-Four have long been staples of literary bookshelves and canonical classroom texts. In recent years, though, these titles have also become fixtures of banned book displays in local libraries and bookstores as the works increasingly find themselves as flash points in restrictive legislation and contentious school district challenges. As Banned Books Week returns October 4–10, these volumes once again take center stage in national debates over censorship, access to controversial writings, and appropriate classroom content.

But what form does banning actually take, and how has that shifted over the centuries?

While the methods of censorship have changed dramatically over time, the desire to control access to ideas has remained remarkably consistent. From the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books and Nazi campaigns against “degenerate art” and music to Cold War–era underground publishing networks and contemporary legislative battles in the United States, censorship and responses to it have continually adapted to new technologies, political climates, and cultural anxieties. The Getty Research Institute’s collections—including propaganda publications, underground editions of prohibited texts, and materials documenting resistance to censorship—offer a window into this long and evolving history of both the suppression and survival of ideas.

16th-century origins

A historical discussion of book banning can begin with the Index librorum prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books). The volume, a list of writings, publishers, and other materials the Catholic Church deemed heretical, was maintained from about 1559 to 1966. The Index was devised to prevent individuals from reading immoral or blasphemous titles. This was a mounting concern after the invention of the Gutenberg printing press around 1440, which increased both literacy rates and access to physical texts. Catholic states, able to make laws based on the precedent of the Index, enforced its restrictions.

The original Index banned nearly 550 authors and individual titles. By 1948, that list had grown to more than 4,000 due to changes throughout the Index’s 400-year history. The Index not only impacted authors’ reputations but also encouraged writers to self-censor, prior to submitting their work for review, to receive publishing approval and stay off the roster.

The Novissimus librorum prohibitorum, et expurgandorum index (Newest Index of Forbidden and Purged Books) was released in 1707 by the Spanish Inquisition. This edition targeted not only the Christian reform movement but also Jewish and Muslim publications. This version also included a list of materials that were only deemed acceptable once the offensive content was removed. The entirety of the Getty’s 1707 edition of this volume can be viewed through the Internet Archive.

Associate Curator Isotta Poggi, who works at the Research Institute on acquisitions of photographs and cocurated the exhibition on censorship, Promote, Tolerate, Ban: Art and Culture in Cold War Hungary, notes that the Inquisition is an extreme example of religious censorship.

“During the Spanish Inquisition, people would be jailed and sometimes burnt for heresy. There were real witch hunts for people who were asking questions that seemed to threaten the authority of the religious dogma,” she says. “And that kind of radicalism leads to questions of why and how an authority would try to hold on to power by banning certain books. What are the stakes at play?”

Pope Paul VI effectively discontinued the Index in 1966 with the understanding that “it no longer has the force of ecclesiastical law with the attached censure.” The official notification, however, maintained that the Index was still “morally binding” and encouraged Catholic publishers and readers to examine the content of books and rebuke harmful texts and authors. Although the Index had already begun to lose influence by this time, it is still remembered for its early impact of restricting printing presses’ publishing licenses.

Early American censorship

The suppression of Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan, considered the first book to be banned in America, expanded this concept of religious-based censorship. The 1637 text consisted of three volumes primarily describing New England biogeography and Indigenous peoples but included in its last section a “withering critique” of the Puritans’ treatment of Native Americans. Although the book was based on legal briefs that attempted to replace the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s government with one presided over by his employer, Morton’s account stood apart from many contemporary colonial narratives because of its more sympathetic and humanizing depiction of Native Americans, while casting a critical eye on settlers’ treatment of them.

As soon as Morton’s book was published in the Netherlands, 400 copies were seized by the English government, with those remaining immediately outlawed by the Puritan settlers. Upon returning to the colonies from England after being exiled by the Pilgrims for his “free-living” lifestyle while in charge of the Virginia colony Merry Mount, Morton was arrested in Massachusetts in 1643 and banished to Maine, where he died only a few years later.

The publication of the Mark Twain classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn marked a shift from religious-based censorship challenges in the United States to more generalized objections of authors and titles. In March 1885, just one month after Twain published what became a landmark work of American literature, the librarians of Concord, Massachusetts, banned the title for being “trash” that was “suitable only for the slums.” While recent challenges against the novel object to its racial stereotypes, it is still important to note the broad nature of the original disapproval.

Nazi censorship of art and music

Nazi book burnings persist in social consciousness as one of the most menacing images of 20th-century censorship. During the May 10, 1933, Opernplatz incident in Berlin, German university students supported by the Nazi regime led a crowd of 40,000 in burning 20,000 volumes. The works destroyed included anything deemed to be “un-German,” a wide net that included titles by Jewish authors, pacifists, critics, socialists, and communists.

In addition to this mass physical destruction, there were numerous other forms of censorship throughout Germany leading up to World War II. “Entartete Kunst” (“Degenerate Art”) was the propagandized term the Nazis used to refer to modern art, or rather art that again was deemed “un-German” in feeling. Art classified as such was removed from museums and banned in Nazi Germany, with many of the era’s modern German artists forbidden to sell or produce work.

In 1937, Adolf Ziegler and the Nazi Party in Munich organized Die Ausstellung “Entartete ‘Kunst’” (The “Degenerate ‘Art’” Exhibition), featuring some 650 pieces taken from German museums. The exhibition was held alongside the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung (Great German Art Exhibition) to showcase both the supposed weakness of the “degenerate art” and strength of Nazi-approved artworks. Three million people visited the “degenerate art” exhibition by its end. Programs made to accompany the exhibition, as shown in an example from the Research Institute’s archives, were heavily propagandized—from the cover design to descriptions of artworks.

One part of the larger campaigns against “degenerate art” was “Entartete Musik” (“Degenerate Music”), which included a ban on pieces written by Jewish composers and heavy restrictions on jazz. As with the visual artists, many composers were unable to freely continue producing work, with many forced into exile or sent to concentration camps. “Entartete Musik” exhibits began in 1938, showcasing the so-called “degenerate music,” with similarly propagandized materials, like ones held in the Getty’s archives, accompanying the events.

By controlling how, where, and when people consumed art of all kinds, the Nazi regime transformed censorship from the suppression of individual works into a broader effort to shape public attitudes toward entire artistic movements, cultures, and people. More than simply trying to erase a single piece, “Entartete Kunst” pitted genres against each other and turned public opinion against whole styles of art, discouraging people from engaging with contemporary culture and encouraging self-censorship. Just like the self-censoring impact of the Index librorum prohibitorum, the Nazis’ campaigns against “degenerate art” relied on a simple principle: shaping public opinion can be more effective than enforcing outright bans.

Poggi notes that the Nazi regime’s joint attack on art and music “shows how important those two elements are in society.” “It’s the government that is attacking a group of people through art and culture,” Poggi says. “If they decide that it’s dangerous, that also art and culture need to be controlled, it’s something very important to critically think about. What’s the political agenda behind this? Whose interests are being served and why?”

The Cold War era in the Eastern Bloc

George Orwell’s 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is perhaps one of literature’s most enduring depictions of totalitarian censorship, illustrating how authoritarian regimes shape thought by controlling information, not just restricting access to it. Beyond the powerful critique of totalitarianism in its pages, Nineteen Eighty-Four has a long history of combatting censorship. The Getty’s Hungarian copy of the novel, published the same year referenced in the book’s title, translated by Antal György and published by Magyar Október (Hungarian October) is a perfect example of this, with its typewritten text and simple paperback binding.

Produced as a samizdat, or a self-published book released without the permission of a controlling government, copies like this one of Nineteen Eighty-Four, among other titles, were illegally produced and distributed in secret throughout the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. The front and back covers depict a brick wall with eyeballs peeking through, calling attention to the surveillance within the novel and the real-world eyes on the illegal copy. The bricks on the back cover even have Hungarian graffiti written on them, echoing some of the propagandistic slogans that haunt the novel: Háború = Béke (War = Peace), Szabadság = Szolgaság (Freedom = Slavery), and Tudatlanság = Hatalom (Ignorance = Power).

“It’s important to look at the physical [book]; the medium is a message in a way,” Poggi says. “Then, of course, you want to look at the contents and why, for example, the story in Nineteen Eighty-Four would be forbidden in Eastern Europe. There’s something to be said. If it was banned, it means that it was perceived as something threatening for the system. And then, of course, it made people want to read it more.”

One samizdat directly attacking censorship was Miklós Haraszti’s booklet A cenzúra esztétikája (The Aesthetics of Censorship), released in Hungary in 1986 and translated into English in 1987 with the title The Velvet Prison. The cover on the Getty’s edition, Poggi explains, shows “the conformist state-artist using a printing press to flatten his own ideas (a brain) into a red socialist star, representing the socialist bloc country during the Cold War. The resulting empty head of the artist symbolizes the erosion of creativity and artistic independence.” Meanwhile, in the bottom right-hand corner, the mimeograph machine used to produce alternative press such as this samizdat is visible, illustrating the complex relationship between artists and the state.

“This book critiqued the system that compelled artists in socialist regimes to accommodate and internalize state ideology as a condition of professional survival,” explains Poggi.

In addition to underground publications, the Cold War saw independent magazines published in spite of censorship laws. Sixty copies of the first issue of the East German magazine 1. Mose 2, 25 (Genesis 2:25) were released in 1988 with the aim of giving voice to those who advocated reform. The periodical combined art and photography of protests and demonstrations with commentary on current political events. It also featured fiction, poetry, and other, less direct political reflections, including the second issue’s two-page spread of the original English and translated German lyrics of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song “Mountains O’ Things.”

While the run of 1. Mose 2, 25 was short—only three issues were produced due to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Poggi notes—the magazine underscores the urge to create DIY media and the effort involved to disseminate ideas through alternative means. Even more than the underground copies of Ninety Eighty-Four and The Aesthetics of Censorship, 1. Mose 2, 25 was simply bound with tape and staples, resulting in something reminiscent of a modern zine. “Typically with the samizdat being self-made books, they have this do-it-yourself aesthetic,” Poggi says. “Just like the zines today, if you can only bind pages with staples or tape, that’s what you have accessible, then it’s already a clue that this is material circulating in a different way compared to mass production from a publishing house that is supported by the government or going through the regular bookstore circulation system.”

Cold War era censorship in Eastern Bloc countries impacted many additional art forms as well, including Thomas Günther’s poem “Das Schweigen” (“The Silence”), which is printed on a poster in the Research Institute’s special collections. Throughout the print, he repeats that a person is silent using simple phrases—“Ich schweige/du schweigst/er schweigt” (“I am silent/you are silent/he is silent”)—with various tenses and pronouns. The 1980 poem was not allowed to be printed in any official magazine, leading Günther and many others to use underground publications to distribute their poetry.

“He tried to publish this in a magazine in East Germany, and they said: ‘This is not visual art. It’s a poem, so you have to go to the literature permit office.’ However, the literature office rejected his application and refused to publish the poem, claiming that it was not creative enough,” Poggi recounts. “Of course, he was making a pun about the ability to speak by using the verb conjugation about being silent…he was making a point that he cannot publish the poem and that he is being silenced.”

Only after the Berlin Wall came down was Günther able to find a publisher, printing the poem in Uwe Warnke’s famous artist’s magazine Entwerter/Oder (Either/Or) in 1992, along with the story of his hurdles with the authorities’ bureaucracy to publish it. Günther faced challenges with every path toward publication he tried, truly illustrating the forced silence described in the work. “Günther’s poem basically embodies and materializes the concept of not being able to speak in an authoritarian regime,” Poggi says.

Late 20th century to today

In the contemporary United States, debates over censorship increasingly play out through school boards, state legislatures, and the judiciary. Before federal courts ruled key provisions unconstitutional and blocked its enforcement, Texas’s 2023 READER (Restricting Explicit and Adult Designated Educational Resources) Act would have required booksellers and publishers to rate books based on sexual content, with titles deemed “sexually explicit” barred from school bookshelves. The more recently proposed federal Stop the Sexualization of Children Act aims to prohibit the use of federal elementary and secondary education funds for any program, material, or literature for minors that includes “sexually oriented material.” Supporters describe such legislation as protecting children from inappropriate content, while critics, including the American Library Association, have spoken out against the bill, arguing that its broad language could limit access to a wide range of books and educational resources, as well as disproportionately target LGBTQ+ content.

Banned Books Week, which began in 1982 in response to a growing number of book challenges increasingly centered on schools and libraries, is one of the most visible efforts to push back against such restrictions. Typically observed the last week of September or first week of October, the week of advocacy encourages readers to engage directly with challenged writings and—like the DIY samizdat of the Cold War-era—has even produced works confronting censorship head on.

To commemorate 2005’s Banned Books Week, King’s Books in Tacoma, Washington, hand-printed and released An Inflammatory Guide: Banned and Challenged Books You Should Read. The handheld accordion-style booklet is labeled like a matchbox with a foil-stamped cover that reads, “Open mind before striking.” The guide spotlights three banned book titles for each category of censorship, including violence, nudity, homosexuality, and occult themes. These are featured alongside a list of the most banned books in 2004 and quotes about censorship from authors and thought leaders such as Salman Rushdie, Benjamin Franklin, and Mark Twain, to name a few. The last quote, for example, by Ray Bradbury is: “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

Ultimately, Poggi hopes that the Research Institute’s materials related to censorship not only show how and why information is controlled but also document how writers and artists have harnessed the power of alternative channels to circumvent the control of information and circulate ideas. She hopes the messages and media of the materials encourage people to critically examine the agenda behind what they’re reading.

“Pay attention when you look at a book or an article,” Poggi says. “Who is the publisher? What’s the power structure behind it? Who is the audience for that? Look for the fine print!”