Book burning

Someone needs to put some good info on the Nazi book burnings. Maybe there's already good data here at the Wiki. Any takers? Nextel ringtones User:Dante Alighieri/Dante Alighieri

God, and Heine was Jewish too... what a thing to be right about. Abbey Diaz User:Dante Alighieri/Dante Alighieri

Beatles records are just that, records. That info should be in the Free ringtones Beatles article, not here. Majo Mills User:Eloquence/Eloquence

:I disagree the first paragraph states that in modern times other media has been burned. The famous Beatles record burning episode (After Mosquito ringtone John Lennon's bigger than Sabrina Martins Jesus quote) included the burning of publicity material such as posters and books as well. Nextel ringtones User:Mintguy/Mintguy

:: That's OK, but if we say "targets for book burnings have included" we should list actual books. I have no problem including burning of other media, but perhaps that should be done in a separate list (can be in this article for the time being). Abbey Diaz User:Eloquence/Eloquence

One thing that would interest me: In Michael Hutchison's ''Anatomy of Sex and Power'', the author states that the nazis burned Darwin's books. He doesn't cite a source, though. Can anyone confirm that? Do we have a list of the books burned by the nazis? Free ringtones User:Eloquence/Eloquence



In some religious groups, converts are encouraged to burn "heretical" or "satanic" books or other works in their possession from their lives prior to conversion. For instance, youths in America who convert to various sorts of fundamentalist Christianity have been encouraged to burn or otherwise destroy Majo Mills occult related hobby materials (tarot cards, ouija boards), Cingular Ringtones role-playing games, and nonreligious geo cinema rock music. This is not the same as the public spectacle of book burning, though culturally it touches on many of the same themes. black university User:Fubar Obfusco/FOo

We need to distinguish between forced and voluntary book burning. The Potter burnings, the one described in the Bible etc. are voluntary burnings. There were also voluntary comic book burnings in post-war Germany, instigated by the church (called "Schmökergrab-Aktionen"). I'm not sure ''how'' voluntary these really were, though, since teachers at the time had quite some authority over children. three i User:Eloquence/Eloquence

i need help

hi i was wondering if you guys could answer some questions for me

Why were books burned during the Qin Dynasty?

What are the similarities of book burnings?

why did Nazis in Germany engage in book burnings during world war2?

Why were hiduists burning books in India?

if you guys could help that would be great thanks


Zany additions by Anonymous the outbreak User:142.177.169.163
If anyone think these look a little weird, check the other contributions of this anymous zealot. car telef Wetman/Wetman 06:21, 31 Aug 2004
Other spurious entries have crept in and are removed here for discussion:

*''white agents 1947: US government burns the library of side chris Dinshah Ghadiali:'' The US had no authority to be burning the books of this well-known quack.
*''efficient instrument March 17 gradually leached 1960, beefy guys New York City: slugs it FDA burns the books of can withdraw Wilhelm Reich (as had the Nazis in November 1933)'' This claim is made at http://www.alternativescience.com/bioenergy.htm and is unlikely. (The date is St Patrick's Day, quite a busy day in NYC.)
* ''the book cheever won Making of a Godol: A Study of Episodes in the Lives of Great Torah Personalities (pitched much 2003) by a dod Nathan Kamenetsky has been banned in some ultra-orthodox Jewish circles'' Perhaps so. This is a list of histor8ic book-burnings.

So - did governments of the US order the burnings of these books, or not? While you're checking into it, here's another: "Federal agents burned his (circular building Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Sr.) books, including ''Why Is Your Country At War?'' and the papers and contents of his home office in Little Falls, Minnesota."[http://judicial-inc.biz/pyschos/Lindbergh.htm] cause americans Kwantus/Kwantus 21:07, 2005 Jan 28



I think there does need to be a statement that at least some people find the idea of book burning to be offensive. That it's found such on the grounds of book burning being censorship, or the connotation book burning has because of the Nazi book burnings, and the book burnings that occur today. bracketing the Jesster79/JesseG 23:44, Oct 5, 2004
:The more historical detail can be mustered in the entry, the more readers will come to that very conclusion on their own. Let the burnings speak for themselves. And let's not leave out the Christian book burnings of pagan literature and "heretical" material. competing operating Wetman/Wetman 02:05, 6 Oct 2004

The destruction of daimler which Wilhelm Reich's books and laboratory notes under court order is well-documented. I'm not sure whether it should be classed as a "book burning" in the sense described in this article, though. While his books and notes ''were'' in fact destroyed by burning, this was done by officers of the court in a trash incinerator. It was not a ritual for the public "edification" in the sense of Nazi book-burnings. [http://pw2.netcom.com/~rogermw/Reich/book_burning.html]

Legally, Reich was in contempt of court; he had violated a court order to cease publishing his "orgone energy" writings. (This publication was condemned as practicing quack medicine.) Morally, a person who loves freedom may find it repulsive (and deserving of the term "book burning") ''whenever'' agents of government seize and destroy printed works belonging to a person who desires their publication.

So I can see three possible meanings of "book burning" here. Which one this article chooses to describe must control whether Reich's (or any other) works are considered "burned books":

#Any destruction by fire of printed matter, for the purpose of preventing its publication or dissemination.
#Any public ritual of destruction by fire of printed matter, for the purpose of denouncing it.
#Any objectionable destruction by fire of printed matter which is today regarded as valuable.

Naturally, the third option is subjective and thus problematic for Wikipedia. I recommend one of the other two. —Fubar Obfusco/FOo 02:34, 6 Oct 2004

Tenacious D Records
Were they really burned?

The Harry Potter Verses

'' The Satanic Verses, burnt by Muslims who considered it blasphemous''

''the Harry Potter books, burnt by some American Christians who considered them satanic ''

This angers me so much. Rowling was burnt by ''some'' Christians, while Rushdie was burnt simply by Muslims. Bias? Eurocentricisim? The only reason that I'm not WP:BB/being bold is that I'm finding myself more and more pissed at the media doing this and that I may not see an important factor that I otherwise might. So, I'm asking you people, is there any reason to keep it like it is? And if not, how do you think we should state it? Does the ''some'' clutter Wikipedia or do you think it makes it seem less biased? Dyss/Dyss 04:19, 4 Jan 2005 (foaming)

:Here's an idea: Perhaps we should not list ''any'' case of book-burning which cannot be backed up by a reference documenting the following:
:* The works burned
:* The place and date of the burning
:* The persons responsible (individuals or official organizations not identity groups like "Christians" or "Muslims")
:* The stated motives, if attested
:The reference doesn't have to be linked in this article, if the specific act of book-burning is described in more detail in another Wikipedia article, such as Serapeum or Bonfire of the Vanities.

:And we should not be making generalizations like "burned by Christians" or "burned by Muslims" or whatever, ''even if'' qualified with a weasel word like "some". There are many millions of Muslims in the world, most of whom have probably never been in any sort of contact with a copy of ''The Satanic Verses''. Fubar Obfusco/FOo 14:56, 4 Jan 2005

::That might be a good idea, you have my support for it, but I can see a few problems with it:
::* Some of these happened so long ago that reliable data on them might simply be impossible to find now. The Bible quote, the Sibylline Books, Qin Shi Huang's orders. If the book burning was a good example but simply to old to have a (reliable) date pinned it shouldn't go I think.
::*The big one: if we cannot call them Christians, Muslims etc. what CAN we call them? Don't get me wrong, I think making generalizations is very harmful to the Wikipedia, but in some cases this might be problematic. If we can say "People belonging to this-or-that religious sect" or "followers of religious leader Bob" or even "inhabitants of this town", that would be ideal of course. I'm definately going to try to pin some ''names'' on these. But this might not always be possible.

:: ''The works of Jewish authors and other "degenerate" books were burned by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s.''

::This one will be quite hard. There is not one single incident, the term Nazis is quite vague (I can imagine some citizens joined in the burnings without being Nazis) and there are no books listed. This one could probably either be removed or meged with the one below it (which gives a group, date and examples of works burned) but the last two might be especially problematic. I'm not sure if Khomeini was the person who called for people to do this, but if that was so a air way to put it, in my eyes, would be "On xxxx Khomeini called all Muslims to burn copies of TSV. On place x, y and z a massive burning happened soon thereafter" (I'm making this stuff up, I'll go see if I can find some information after this).
::But what if we can not find a specific group that burned it but we only find a lot of smaller ones? Let's say that a variety of Christian groups decided that HP was diabolic? Of course we would not want to pin it on all Christians. What do we do in this case?
::I'm going to see if I can associate some names with incidents now. Thanks for your help and I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds these generalizations problematic. Dyss/Dyss 22:04, 4 Jan 2005

:::Even in the case of the Nazi book burnings, we should be able to come up with ''some'' names and dates. However, I agree with you that my criteria above are overstated ... I suspect that actions taken on the part of a government or political party, as part of a stated policy that is known to history, can be attributed as such rather than (e.g.) needing exact dates of Nazi book-burnings. Of course it would be ''nice'' to have exact dates for major burnings, and I think we can:

:::* http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/gallery/45032.htm is an image from the National Archives, captioned "Nazi students and SA unloading "un-German" books as fuel for a book burning on May 10, 1933 in Berlin, Germany."
:::* http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/gallery/01622.htm is another, same date.

:::We are much safer, in terms of neutrality, to state that an action was taken by ''members of a specific organization'' (such as the SA, or the Roman Nth Legion) rather than by ''people fitting a particular description'' (such as Germans, or Christians). Fubar Obfusco/FOo 22:22, 4 Jan 2005
::::Completely agree. It's much harder to 'accidentally fall into a group' if that group is a real organization instead of a label. Those photos are nice and I think I'll put one up with this article. The USHMM doesn't mind people using information or media. Dyss/Dyss 23:06, 4 Jan 2005