This year, 100 million people in the U.S. did not read a book. There is, believe it or not, a more devious way that “the powers that be” can remove the written word—and the boundless knowledge and inspiration it contains and provides—from the public consciousness without too many of us noticing. The secret to this horrible possibility is part of the backstory of the book-burning, fascist version of America depicted in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. You see, long before the oppressive government in the novel banned all books and sponsored teams of “firemen” to round them up and burn them, people simply chose to stop reading.

The past is full of book burnings designed to censor what the people in charge (or who aspired to be in charge) felt was dangerous information. Dark events in history — that got rid of books — started 4500 years ago. Learn more about Syria, Turkey, China, Christians, Catholics, Protestants, Puritans, Fascists, Nazis, Hitler, McCarthy, Qin, Franco, Cromwell, Jovian.