by Beth Staats
Quick Summary
Ebooks Minnesota lets you be the judge on novels, essays, and books that have been banned from bookstores, bookshelves, and libraries throughout history.
Ebooks Minnesota lets you be the judge on novels, essays, and books that have been banned from bookstores, bookshelves, and libraries throughout history.
Offering four banned book collections, Ebooks Minnesota contains books that were banned for political reasons, like Gulliver's Travels for madness, public urination, and political satire. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, can be found in the collection of books that were banned for social reasons including the author's Socialist views, and has been banned in South Korea as recently as 1985. Ebooks Minnesota also contains a small collection of titles banned due to religious reasons. For example, "A group of Islamist lawyers in Egypt has called for the book Arabian Nights to be banned because they believe it is obscene." Then there are books that have been banned for unusual reasons, like Black Beauty. During Apartheid, the South African government demanded the racial separation of native Africans and white Europeans living in the continent, regarding the former as second-class citizens. Though Black Beauty refers to an animal, the government felt that the title expressed inappropriate sentiments about the dark-skinned natives – simply, that ‘black’ could be ‘beautiful’.
What are your thoughts on these and other banned books in the collection?
