History's Greatest Book Burners

The Daily Beast: If Pastor Terry Jones goes through with his threat to burn Korans on Sept. 11, he’ll take his place alongside fanatics who destroyed Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Falun Gong texts—and even Braille books.

During the Cultural Revolution, young Chinese zealots burned not only classic works of Chinese literature, but also irreplaceable family genealogy books in which the names of all male offspring were inscribed. And in 2004, according to a United Nations report, Beijing publicly destroyed hundreds of thousands of books and materials as part of its campaign against the Falun Gong movement.

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