You Can't Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom (English and English Edition) [Paperback]

Nick Cohen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 19, 2012

Winner of Polemic of the Year at the 2013 Political Book Awards.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism, and the advent of the Web which allowed for even the smallest voice to be heard, everywhere you turned you were told that we were living in an age of unparalleled freedom.
You Can't Read This Book argues that this view is dangerously naive. From the revolution in Iran that wasn't, to the Great Firewall of China and the imposition of super-injunctions from the filthy rich protecting their privacy, the traditional opponents of freedom of speech - religious fanaticism, plutocratic power and dictatorial states - are thriving, and in many respects finding the world a more comfortable place in the early 21st century than they did in the late 20th.

This is not an account of interesting but trivial disputes about freedom of speech: the rights and wrongs of shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre, of playing heavy metal at 3 am in a built-up area or articulating extremist ideas in a school or university. Rather, this is a story that starts with the cataclysmic reaction of the Left and Right to the publication and denunciation of the Satanic Verses in 1988 that saw them jump into bed with radical extremists. It ends at the juncture where even in the transgressive, liberated West, where so much blood had been spilt for Freedom, where rebellion is the conformist style and playing the dissenter the smart career move in the arts and media, you can write a book and end up destroyed or dead.

Editorial Reviews

Review

‘Cohen is perhaps the most insightful, thought-provoking and entertaining political writer in Britain today, and comes from the honest tradition of English liberal thought that threads from John Milton to John Stuart Mill and George Orwell’ Telegraph, Ed West

‘Nick Cohen’s books are like the best Smiths songs; however depressing the content, the execution is so shimmering, so incandescent with indignation that the overall effect is transcendently uplifting’ Julie Burchill, Prospect

‘It is useful to have all this material in one place, particularly for the benefit of young people, who must be taught about previous disputes over free expression’ Hanif Kureishi, Independent

‘You can read this book, and you probably should’ Hugo Rifkind, The Spectator

‘Into the space vacated by the controversialist Christopher Hitchens we might recruit the sardonic, sceptical columnist Nick Cohen’ Iain Finlayson, The Times

‘Nick Cohen’s new book is a corrective to the tendency of internet utopians to think that the web has ushered in an “age of transparency” New Statesman

‘Writing with passion, wit and erudition, Cohen draws upon the spirit of Orwell and Milton in his call for a fightback against the onslaught on free speech’ Metro, 4 stars

‘You Can’t Read This Book. You can, OF COURSE. And you should. Cohen is right about everything that matters.’ Standpoint, Anthony Julius

About the Author

Nick Cohen is a journalist and commentator for the Observer and Evening Standard. He is also the author of ‘What’s Left’? – the most important and provocative commentaries on how the Left lost its way.

Product Details

• Paperback: 330 pages
• Publisher: Fourth Estate (January 19, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007308906
• ISBN-13: 978-0007308903
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #138,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Censorship

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fair criticism needs protection February 7, 2012

By David Wasley

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

We believe that we can say, read and hear whatever we want. The author shows that governments, courts, the rich, religious leaders, even some muddle-headed libertarians, often aim or condone the suppression of criticism. A key theme is that criticism that may offend someone, is not the same as that which harms, and is often needed. This book is not a dusty treatise on freedom of speech as its themes are well supported by recent and disturbing case studies.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best non-fiction of 2012? October 30, 2012

By Hugh Young

Format:Paperback

I commend Nick Cohen's "You Can't Read This Book" as perhaps the most important non-fiction book of 2012. It's about censorship today - all too often, self-censorship, and hence censorship that goes unprotested, unrecorded and unnoticed.

He begins with Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali and how shamefully liberals have failed to defend them. (He points out that nobody has dared to publish anything like The Satanic Verses since, and even a sycophantic book, The Jewel of Medina, got suppressed for fear of quite unwarranted Islamist reprisals. This book prompted me to start reading The Satanic Verses, and it is the closest thing we will see in our lifetimes to an Islamic Life of Brian, much more playful than blasphemous. The fatwa against Rushdie should have been laughed off the face of the earth, instead of being cowtowed to by the likes of Roald Dahl and the then Archbishop of Canterbury.)

He draws a sharp distinction between tolerance for religion and respect for religious beliefs.

He covers how terrorists manufacture offence and terrorise randomly; the English libel laws and how the rich and powerful have misused them to silence the powerless, almost without trying; how the obscene "earnings" of money managers contributed to the recent economic collapses and how whistleblowing was suppressed; and how the freedom of the Internet is a double-edged sword. (Julian Assange was not promoting freedom when Wikileaks published a list of informants to the Americans in Afghanistan, for the Taliban to use to compile a death-list.)

The chapter headings give a good idea of its scope:

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! [i.e. Terrorise randomly]

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
The first two headings directly, and I now think, rightly contradict one of the shibboleths of 1980s feminism:

1 The political is not personal
[we self-censor all the time in private, but religious and political ideas "are too important to protect with polite deceits" in public.]
2 The personal is not political
[Demands for a right to privacy are justifiable. They will grow as the Net replaces the anonymity of the twentieth century city with a global village]

3 Respect is the enemy of tolerance
4 If you are frightened, at least have the guts to say so

If Nick Cohen is a Zionist, it doesn't show in this book. That's not hypocrisy, it's impartiality. To attack his book for his personal political views is the fallacy of argument ad hominem, attacking the person. I only found one example of self-censorhip (but then, I wouldn't find them, would I?), and that - about a famous film star's well-known sexual orientation - so obvious I think it was meant to be recognised for what it is.

I like having my ideas shaken up. This book did.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Re to review by Stuart August 28, 2012

By Terry R.

Format:Paperback

This is a reply to the review by Stuart. Stuart in his review misrepresents the views of the author. Apart from that, I think you should read both books of Nick Cohen, What's Left and You cant read this book. So, to respond to Stuart's review:

First, the term 'hypocrite' is not applied correctly in his review. In a book about free speech it would be hypocritical to deny people like anti-zionist or antisemites their right of free speech. Well, Cohen of course doesn't, he criticizes their view. Calling someone a hypocrite because you do not share his opinion makes free exchange of opinions impossible.

Second, the argument Stuart refers to is not in this book, but in the previous "What's left".

Third, it's not even in this book, because Stuart apparently didn't understand Cohen's argument and instead of correctly describing the author's argument, he - by simply calling him a 'zionist' - he implies that Cohen is uncritical of Israel and thinks people criticizing Israel are not only anti-Zionists, but real Anti-semites. Well, he doesn't. He even explicitly says so. Instead he simply criticizes the view, that the establishment of Israel is the 'root cause' of ALL the problems in the Middle East, including the rise of Islamism. To quote him from What's left, Chapter 12, p. 352 (emphasis mine):

"All of these echoes of fascism passed without comment from the majority of the liberal-left. I'm NOT saying their anti-Zionism was the same as classic antisemitism because with a few dishonourable exceptions the Jewish obsession of most people on the Left didn't degenerate into a visceral loathing of all Jews. Rather, they behaved AS IF they were antisemites. When they designated Israel the world's only pariah state and the 'root cause' of terrorism and war, they once again described to Jews the supernatural power to bring chaos."

So, go on and read both of Cohen's books.