Join us online on Thursday 4th September when we meet US author Adam Szetela. Adam’s new book, That Book is Dangerous: How Moral Panic, Social Media and the Culture Wars are Remaking Publishing has received high praise from eminent free speech defenders such as Stephen Pinker and Nadine Strossen for its exposé of the culture of censorship that has taken hold in the world of books.
Informed by interviews with presidents and vice presidents at the Big Five US publishers, literary agents at the most prestigious agencies, award-winning authors, editors, marketers, sensitivity readers, and other industry professionals to examine the new publishing landscape, the book catalogues the new challenges to literary freedom. Mandatory sensitivity readers, morality clauses in author contracts, even censorship of “dangerous” books in the name of antiracism, feminism, and other forms of social justice—all familiar to us in Britain—have transformed the freedom of authors to express themselves and of readers to judge for themselves. That Book Is Dangerous! is a much-needed wake-up call for anyone who cares about reading, writing, and the publication of books—as well as the generations of young readers we are raising.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:
“Szetela engagingly shows that censorship, thought-policing, and the punishment of heretics need not arise from autocratic governments or established religions. They can emerge in private organizations within a liberal democracy—organizations, ironically, whose mission would seem to be the free expression of ideas. This book should mobilize lovers of literate culture with common sense to push back on this madness. And it reminds us that censoriousness may be a part of human nature, and eternal vigilance the price of free speech.”
—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University; author of Rationality
“Adam Szetela’s book is an indispensable investigation of the self-censorship happening behind closed doors inside publishers, literary agencies, and other institutions that have traditionally supported robust free speech. Even for those of us who have followed these developments with concern, his book reveals important new details and is illuminated by fascinating interdisciplinary analysis spanning the fields of law, sociology, moral philosophy, social psychology, political science, economics, and history. Szetela’s own book is itself dangerous—to the modern-day book burners who want to restrict the scope of what can be written and read.”
—Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; former President, American Civil Liberties Union; author of HATE: Why we should resist it with free speech not censorship.
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