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Book burning

Book burning is the practice of ceremoniously destroying by fire one or more copies of a book or other written material. In modern times other forms of media, such as records, CDs and video tapes, have also been ceremoniously burned. The practice, often carried out publicly, is usually motivated by moral, political or religious objections to the material.

The writer Heinrich Heine famously said in 1821 "Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings." (Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen). Just over a century later the Nazis did exactly as Heine had forecast.

The Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451 is about a fictional future society that has institutionalized book burning.

Incidents of book burnings have included:

Other famous items ceremoniously burnt in protest:

See also

External links



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