Say, for example, is it really a huge surprise that Stalin was like, 'Oh, absolutely not,' when it came to stocking George Orwell's satirical, scathing criticism of the the then-Soviet Union leader Animal Farm? (Hey, his informed distaste for the book beats some banners who censor for reasons they don't even understand. And that's always important to the larger cultural discussion around censorship in literature and elsewhere.

Not that it's ever OK to ban a book, but the context can show the atmosphere in cities or entire places that may have lead to a book banning.

But putting these major banned books - meaning the books that caused a particular stir or the ones that were banned often, in several places - on a timeline gives you one important piece of information: context.

Libraries, schools, and hey even entire countries have been banning books for the ideas they stand for, the content they include, and sometimes even the authors' values behind the scenes. It's no secret that censorship is alive and well when it comes to books.

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