Dangerous Ideas: A Brief History of Censorship in the West, from the Ancients to Fake News

by Eric Berkowitz

Overview

This “engrossing history of censorship” is an urgent, timely read for our era of social media tolls, 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807036259
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	05/04/2021
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	149,221
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Eric Berkowitz is a writer, lawyer, and journalist. For more than twenty years, he practiced intellectual property and business litigation law in Los Angeles. Berkowitz has published widely throughout his career, and his writing has appeared in periodicals such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Economist, the Los Angeles Times, and LA Weekly. His previous books include Sex and Punishment and The Boundaries of Desire. He lives in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1
Helping God Along: Speech Suppression in the Ancient World

CHAPTER 2
The Fire Cure: Censorship from Late Antiquity to Gutenberg

CHAPTER 3
The Printquakes of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

CHAPTER 4
Revolution and Control in the Eighteenth Century

CHAPTER 5
Class Warfare in the Nineteenth Century

CHAPTER 6
Trouble in Mind: The Early Twentieth Century

CHAPTER 7
Screaming at the Crowd in the Contemporary Era

AFTERWORD

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

02/15/2021

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.” (May)

Publishers Weekly

[A] lively and wide-ranging history . . . [an] engrossing history of censorship.”
—The Economist

“Eric Berkowitz’s rollicking, entertaining book reminds us that ideas have always been contested and that censorship is undesirable and mostly counter-productive.”
—The Australian

“In his captivating sprint through two millennia of censorship, Eric Berkowitz chronicles some of the more bizarre and egregious episodes, while explaining that the human instinct to suppress speech has rarely waned.”
—Financial Times

“Eric Berkowitz describes a fascinating sprint through 2,000 years of censorship.”
—California News Times

“Terms like blasphemy, subversion and hate speech are impossible to define. No wonder attempts at censorship are inconsistent and often absurd.”
—Wall Street Journal

“This book supplies a useful and engaging grounding.”
—Morning Star

“A welcome unpolemical intervention in a debate where stridency is the norm.”
—The Telegraph, The 75 best books of 2021

“Eric Berkowitz’s absorbing and comprehensive history of censorship . . . . demonstrates that, although the fight for freedom of expression was key to the advance of civil liberties, the struggle is not over.”
—Chatham House

"Freedom of speech has fallen out of favor, now frequently associated with right-wing talking points. But here, in this nuanced outing, California human rights lawyer Eric Berkowitz gives the subject the consideration it’s due. He traces the history of attacks on free speech and explores why societies censor dissenting ideas."
—The Globe and Mail

“A timely contribution to an ongoing debate.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“[A] thought-provoking account . . . 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.’”
—Publishers Weekly

“Berkowitz’s book . . . always manages to surprise, especially with a lively flow of villains.”
—New York Review of Books

“I have never read a more comprehensive, entertaining historical account of censorship in the West.”
—Greg Lukianoff, The FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education)

“Free speech good! Censorship bad! Undeniable. Indisputable. Except that Eric Berkowitz denies and disputes with such intellectual agility as to induce cramping of the brain. Vivid, violent historical examples buttress the case against censorship, while we citizens of the Internet find ourselves drowning in crud for want of it. The point is you’ll enjoy the ride, and the argument has never been more pressing.”
—Ted Koppel

“Berkowitz untangles censorship’s maddening complexities to reveal core truths behind every book burning, every silencing of dissidents, and every removal of online content. . . . Dangerous Ideas takes the reader on an unruly ride—from the Vatican’s infamous list of banned books to algorithms that manipulate online speech to modern demands for safe spaces from offense. A hugely entertaining and urgently important book.”
—Nadine Strossen, former president of the ACLU and author of Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship

“Eric Berkowitz has written a magnificent book that is original in its scope. . . . Beautifully written, this book leaves the reader with the strong sense that in every society there is the impulse to censor, but censorship rarely works.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky, dean, UC Berkeley School of Law, and author of The Case Against the Supreme Court

“The sweep of this book is vast and its judgments thoughtful. Above all, Berkowitz shows that censorship remains tempting for those in power, even as history demonstrates how often it proves futile.”
—Richard Tofel, president, ProPublica

“Unorthodox ideas can be dangerous enough to provoke censorship. Forbidden truths lurk in the shadows of taboo. With impressive scholarship and erudite humor, Eric Berkowitz guides the reader through mental spaces that have been declared off-limits from the ancient world to the present. Read this book before it’s banned.”
—Christopher Ryan, coauthor of Sex at Dawn

“A lively, engaging, and thoughtful history of the complex evolution of free speech . . . Berkowitz brings to life the most exciting and compelling controversies over free speech in the history of the Western world.”
—Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism

“In this vibrant and important book, Eric Berkowitz tackles one of the major issues facing society today and warns of the severe threats that come with the suppression of free ideas.”
—Richard Ovenden, author of Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack

From the Publisher

2021-02-16
A history of attacks on free speech.

Lawyer and journalist Berkowitz offers a well-informed chronicle of censorship, from ancient times to the present, arguing persuasively that censorship does not work but instead makes ideas more effective by forbidding them. “Once transmitted,” he writes, “an idea is not easily extinguished” despite fierce coercive power wielded to prevent, suppress, or punish expression. In the ancient world, some words, thought to have magical powers, were considered “so venomous” that they were banned. Athens allowed free speech in the agora but silenced thinkers such as Socrates, whose words were seen as polluting and his trial and death, a means of purification. Societies under stress—war, rebellion, class uprisings, religious dissent—often resort to censorship in the form of conflagrations: From Rome to Nazi Germany, many texts have gone up in flames. In the Middle Ages, the state quashed treasonous utterances by instituting public shaming; severed heads went on display as warnings. Beginning around 1450, the printing press, which circulated ideas quickly and widely, proved a bane to censors. Although, in 1670, Spinoza argued that free speech is a right in a free state, that principle has not been easily upheld. Soon after adopting the First Amendment, for example, the fragile new American nation passed a draconian sedition law. With examples of banned books such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Grapes of Wrath, Berkowitz underscores John Stuart Mill’s contention that an idea that seems harmful one day might be beneficial on another. As much as he champions free expression, Berkowitz sharply indicts social media companies engaged in “surveillance capitalism,” profiting by allowing racism, anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, and disinformation to proliferate. Still, faced with this challenge, he reminds readers that “policing speech too aggressively risks exactly the kind of overbearing exercise of state power that spells the end of a free society.”

A timely contribution to an ongoing debate.

Kirkus Reviews