Reviews.indd


Book Reviews 

Bosmajian, Haig. Burning Books. Jeff er-
son, N.C.: McFarland, 2006. 233p. alk. 
paper, $39.95 (ISBN 9780786422081). 
LC 2005-35201. 

Haig Bosmajian’s comprehensive work, 
Burning Books, explores worldwide 
incidents of book burnings throughout 
history and the roles that authors play 
in these destructive rituals. As he states 
in the Preface, “The horrific history of 
exterminating books, sometimes exter-
minating the authors at the same time, 
is as much a part of current history as it 
was of earlier times.” Bosmajian continues 
by outlining the history of book destruc-
tion around the world from the 15th to 
the 20th century. He also examines the 
metaphoric language that accompanies 
the act of book burnings; examples of 
this language include “pestilence, poison, 
vermin, cancer, and virus.” 

The book is divided into four main 
chapters: “The Magic of Books and Fire,” 
“Burning Blasphemous-Heretical Books,” 
“Burning Seditious-Subversive Books,” 
and “Burning Obscene-Immoral Books.” 
It also includes an introduction, conclu-
sion, bibliography, and index. The content 
throughout the book focuses on the his-
torical events, and their implications, of 
burning books. In addition to outlining 
historical events, Bosmajian highlights 
the fact that book burners often held these 
rituals publicly in the hopes of showing 
the community “…what the minds of 
the authors of the condemned books had 
produced.” Bosmajian also juxtaposes 
specific book burning incidents with 
concurrent international events. 

“The Magic of Books and Fire” is an in-
teresting spin in which Bosmajian makes 
both realistic and abstract connections 
between books, magic, power, mystery, 
fire, and book burning rituals. Bosmajian 
walks the reader through the centuries 
and defines what books and manuscripts 
meant to different sets of people: religious 

and nonreligious, and liter-
ate and illiterate. He argues 
that fire was one of the few 
methods that communities 
used to get rid of witches, 
moles, diseases, and anything 
that was seen as seditious. 
Overall, this first chapter eff ectively ties 
together historical events, the origin and 
evolution of the book-burning phenom-
enon, and the language used to describe 
it throughout the centuries. 

The next few chapters explore the vari-
ous types of books being burned, as well 
as the assorted laws and proclamations 
that were created to justify these ritu-
als. Each chapter is divided into broad 
categories by types of books, which are 
then discussed in chronological order. 
The three types of books that Bosma-
jian discusses are blasphemous-heretical 
books, seditious-subversive books, and 
obscene-immoral books. Bosmajian high-
lights within these chapters additional 
resources pertaining to international book 
burnings. He also examines the progres-
sion of various types of languages and 
phrases that have been associated with 
burned books and provides a plethora 
of detail associated with the “why” and 
“what for” of books being diminished to 
ashes throughout the centuries. 

 The last chapter, “Burning Obscene-
Immoral Books,” is of particular interest 
because the author sheds light on the rise 
of burning obscene books, rather than 
ones that were religiously and politically 
controversial. Bosmajian defi nes obscene 
books as “‘dirt,’ ‘filth,’ and ‘slime’ since 
obscenity is associated with the body, 
nudity, sex, and excretion. The graphic de-
scription of nudity or sexual intercourse 
becomes ‘dirt’ and ‘smut’.” In attempting 
to explain the growth of obscene and 
immoral books being burned, Bosmajian 
states, “As long as obscene books were 
available only to the rich and educated, 

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280 College & Research Libraries 

censorship of such works was minimal; 
it was only when secular authorities felt 
it necessary to protect the morality of an 
increasingly literate citizenry that anti-
obscenity laws and decisions appear in 
significantly greater number.” Bosmajian 
covers the various aspects involved in cat-
egorizing a book as obscene or immoral 
and demonstrates how language was 
employed to determine the ultimate fate 
of the book and sometimes the author. 

This book is a great resource for anyone 
interested in studying the act of book 
burning across the world and throughout 
the centuries. Bosmajian has done an ex-
cellent job of gathering information from 
external resources and brings the content 
together in a concise historical account of 
book-burning rituals. Additionally, the 
author approaches this subject in a unique 
fashion by dividing the burned into broad 
categories of types of books and lead-
ing the reader through a chronological 
history of each category. Furthermore, 
Bosmajian’s knowledge and research 
regarding the types of metaphorical 
language associated with book-burning 
rituals is superb. Besides having a usable 
index, this book also contains an extensive 
bibliography. I would recommend this 
book for anyone in the book business 
or higher education, to book lovers, and 
to the book burners themselves!—Katie 
Nash, Elon University. 

Frank, David John, and Jay Gabler. Re-
constructing the University: Worldwide 
Shifts in Academia in the 20th Century. 
Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University 
Press, 2006. 248p. alk. paper, $19.95 
(paper); $50 (cloth) (ISBN 0804753768; 
080475375X). LC 2006-6596. 

A December 2006 story in the Web-
based news outlet Inside Higher Educa-
tion describes a “divisive semester ” at 
the University of Florida with which 
many of us would be familiar: budget 
deficits, administrative turnover, and 
mournful laments about a pervasive 
lack of commitment to the study of the 
humanities.1 

May 2007 

There is a widespread sentiment in 
institutions of higher education across the 
United States that the humanities are in 
decline. In the decade since the publica-
tion of What’s Happened to the Humanities? 
(1997), this sentiment has found expres-
sion in cleverly titled works such as Who 
Killed Shakespeare? (2001) and Bonfi re of 
the Humanities (2001), which decry the 
meager funding and institutional support 
accorded to scholars and students in fields 
such as English Literature, Philosophy, 
and Classics. The problem with works 
such as these, argue Frank and Gabler, is 
that they are based largely on anecdotal 
evidence and rhetorical fl ourish. They 
articulate a broad set of concerns about 
perceived changes in the academic cur-
riculum in recent decades, but they pro-
vide little hard evidence regarding the 
extent of these changes. Other studies of 
curriculum history, they continue, while 
more measured in tone, rarely extend 
beyond the study of the evolution of a 
single discipline or field. Put simply: 
How much do we really know about the 
ways in which the academic curriculum 
has changed during the 20th century, 
and how might we go about gathering 
evidence about curricular change in ways 
that transcend the limits of the current 
literature? 

In a study of impressive scope, Frank 
and Gabler aim to answer these questions 
through an analysis of trends in faculty 
demographics and course composition 
from institutions around the world. 
What were the specifi c differences in the 
degree programs offered at the Catholic 
University of Louvain (Belgium) in 1930 
and those offered at the same institution 
in 2005? Or, what were the changes in 
the composition of the faculty in British 
Commonwealth universities between 
1915 and 1995 by disciplinary affiliation? 
From primary source data such as these, 
the authors construct a complex argument 
about the history and philosophy of the 
academic curriculum and about the ways 
in which changes in prevailing percep-
tions of reality affect the distribution of