Censorship often stems from

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and politics to education and art. The heads of the Roman Catholic Church needed a way to maintain that power and, as a result, opposed people having access to printed or written text. A stack of books that have been challenged or banned in Texas, April 2022. Photo Courtesy: Montinique Monroe/The Washington Post/Getty ImagesEven Bibles were written in languages that the “everyman” didn’t necessarily read, which meant the church remained the ultimate source of information and authority.


With the advent of the Protestant Reformation, all of that changed. Gutenberg’s Middle East Phone Number List printing press, for example, allowed for religious materials that were written in the vernacular to spread quickly. Books, more so than ever before in the Western world, became a source of knowledge — one that, in theory, anyone could have access to and form opinions about. In an attempt to regain control, the church later put forth a list of publications it deemed heretical, banning Catholic practitioners from reading them. As you can see in these historical examples of book banning.






Censorship often stems from an authority’s attempt to retain power by narrowing the scope of what information and ideas are accessible to the public. So, Why Do People Ban Books Now?Today, people in positions of power ban books for many reasons — religious and political reasons; because they’re discriminatory; or because they want to control information (often by spreading misinformation — or not providing a whole picture). ADVERTISEMENTBut, whatever the reasons, the underlying root of book banning is often fear — a fear of losing control or power, of no longer being the “dominant” narrative.