That Book Is Dangerous!: How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing
MIT Press:
Cambridge: 2025
First edition, Hardcover, New in dust jacket,
274 pp.
“The author draws on interviews with presidents and vice presidents at the Big Five publishers, literary agents at the most prestigious agencies, award-winning authors, editors, marketers, sensitivity readers, and other industry professionals to examine the new publishing landscape. What he finds is unsettling: mandatory sensitivity reads; morality clauses in author contracts; even censorship of ‘dangerous’ books in the name of antiracism, feminism, and other forms of social justice. These changes to acquisition practices, editing policies, and other aspects of literary culture are a direct outgrowth of the culture of public outcries on X, Goodreads, Change.org, and other online platforms, where users accuse authors - justifiably or not - of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other transgressions. But rather than genuinely address the economic inequities of literary production, this current moral crusade over literature serves only to entrench the status quo.” #75636
Price: $29.95