It’s Banned Books Week, so let’s look at the history of book bans in Europe and America. Here I’m sticking to actual bans by legal force. I hope to show that while not all banned books are praiseworthy, stopping their message by prohibition seldom has good results and often opens the way for broader bans.

The first book printed in Europe with movable type was the Gutenberg Bible, issued in the 1450s. Before that, there was censorship, but the technology to mass-produce books didn’t exist. In spite of some legends, Gutenberg’s edition was never banned; it used an accepted translation of the Bible, predating the Protestant Reformation’s competing translations. However, the Church soon began prohibiting books. François Rabelais and Niccolò Machiavelli were among the first targets of Rome’s wrath. The Index Librorum Prohibitorum, first issued in 1560 and revised many times, made the practice more systematic. The Church held legal power at the time, and distributing a prohibited book could result not only in eternal damnation but in confiscation and destruction of the books as well as other penalties.

William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible into English (ca. 1526) was banned under Henry VIII and burned. Tyndale was executed in 1536 for heresy.

Some books were permitted if offending parts were “expurgated” by blacking out or tearing out. Sometimes just the author’s name was removed, because it was the author and not the contents that had offended the Church.

Banning led to the licensing of books. In effect, books were banned by default, and only authorized ones could be printed. England’s Parliament adopted this practice in the 17th century. John Milton wrote the essay “Areopagitica” in 1644 to oppose the legislation. He argued that people need to be exposed to ideas they disagree with if they’re going to have any confidence in their own views. “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary.” His arguments will look familiar to today’s liberal opponents of prohibition and censorship.

Milton didn’t meet with much success. The Licensing of the Press Act of 1662, designed to stop “seditious” material, banned the printing of books without a license and severely restricted imports. The printer John Twyn was executed for treason in 1664. The law lapsed in 1694.

In France in the late 16th through 18th centuries, the publication of a book required royal approval. In practice, the authority was delegated. By the 18th century, many books were printed without explicit authorization. Spain may have had the strictest book censorship of any European country. The Inquisition kept a close watch on printers and booksellers, prohibiting works that promoted non-Catholic religious ideas.

In 1637, Thomas Morton published New English Canaan in the Netherlands, which had fairly liberal laws; the copies he had brought to London were seized. It was also outlawed in Massachusetts, and it’s often said to be the first book banned in England’s American colonies.

In 1873 in the United States, the Comstock Act prohibited a broad range of “obscene” books. That included not just books that mentioned sex, but information on birth control and abortion. A series of court decisions over the next century struck down nearly all its prohibitions.

In 1973, Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers to multiple news outlets; the document was eventually published as a book. He was prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917, but all charges against him were dismissed.

The Nazi government of Germany in the 1930s and 40s practiced heavy censorship, especially of any works with Jewish connections. Books were burned in public. Modern Germany still bans some kinds of books, including pro-Nazi and Holocaust denial material.

In spite of all that has happened in recent years, the United States has one of the highest levels of press freedom in world history. Attempts to exclude broad categories of books from libraries are a matter of concern, but they’re small potatoes compared to what we have experienced in the past and could experience again.

This article is the product of just a couple of hours of work. Apologies for any errors.