‘The Non-People Purges: A Study in Censorship’
“It is undeniable that banning books doesn’t just hinder freedom of speech, but discourages freedom of thought. Labelling a text as problematic is meaningless if that text cannot be read, analysed, and dissented from … The urgency for this book is two-fold: firstly, to shed light on this specific, under-told history; and secondly, to highlight the worrying upward trend of book banning in the modern era.”
In The Non-People Purges, Fin Knight uses the backdrop of censorship and book bans to delve into discussions from nationalism, to LGBTQ+ acceptance, and the education system. Delivered in three sections, the book first presents the historical contexts of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union; then zooms into the banning of burning of books under Hitler and Stalin, looking specifically at the notion of ‘Un-German’ books, the raiding of the Institute of Sexology, ‘Socialist Realism’, the writings of George Orwell, and finally examining the United States’ twentieth-century engagement in book banning through the case study of McCarthy and censorship during the Cold War; and finally, Knight explores the modern implications and trends of book banning, with sections on legislated LGBTQ+ censorship, bans on ‘obscene’ content, and the exclusion and neglect of diverse authors in curricula.
