The Censors and the Schools

"The targets of textbook censorship campaigns change from generation to generation, and so do the characters in the censorship drama...(but) Whatever their differences...would-be textbook censors share the same convictions: that their views are the correct ones, and that the child will be subverted if he hears an opposing philosophy...Too often, society has yielded to pressure groups." While the authors chief subject matter is the activities of such radical Right text-purgers as E. Merrill Root, the personnel of America's Future, Inc., and the DAR National Defense Committee, they also include illuminating accounts of the chief protagonists and martyrs in the past hundred years of this quaint but frightening phenomenon, and they do not hide the less frequent but similar moves made by such "liberal" bodies as the NAACP and B'nai B'rith. There is much more of this sort of thing afoot today and it is more dangerous than the news media indicate, our authors assert - and they go far towards proving it. This is a most timely book, both useful and providential, if the right people will only read it. The "right people" should include more than parents and teachers- all those who wish to preserve the freedom to learn - the whole truth. (Kirkus Reviews)