You Can’t Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom

NICK COHEN

You Can’t Read This Book

Censorship in an Age of Freedom

Copyright

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Fourth Estate

This revised edition published by Fourth Estate 2013

Copyright © Nick Cohen 2012, 2013

The right of Nick Cohen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 978000751850

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2013 ISBN: 9780007436453

Version: 2017-03-27

For Christopher Hitchens

(1949–2011)

There is an all-out confrontation between the ironic and the literal mind: between every kind of commissar and inquisitor and bureaucrat and those who know that, whatever the role of social and political forces, ideas and books have to be formulated and written by individuals.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction

PART ONE: GOD

1. ‘Kill the Blasphemer’

Rules for Censors (1): Demand a Respect You Don’t Deserve

2. A Clash of Civilisations?

Rules for Censors (2): A Little Fear Goes a Long, Long Way

3. Manufacturing Offence

Rules for Censors (3): Go Postal!

4. The Racism of the Anti-Racists

Rules for Censors (4): Say that it is Bigoted to Oppose Bigotry

How to Fight Back: John Milton and the Absurdity of Identity Politics

PART TWO: MONEY

5. The Cult of the Supreme Manager

Rules for Censors (5): People Don’t Want to Know

6. A Town Called Sue

Rules for Censors (6): Money Makes You a Member of a Master Race

How to Fight Back: John Stuart Mill and the Struggle to Speak Your Mind

PART THREE: STATE

7. The Internet and the Revolution

Rules for Censors (7): Look to the Past/Think of the Future

8. The Internet and the Counter-Revolution

How to Fight Back: Advice for Free-Speaking Citizens

Keep Reading

Notes

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Nick Cohen

About the Publisher

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