The essays collected in this volume explore the relationship between political and social censorship, and, more significantly, the rise of an insidious communal censorship that seeks to divide civil society and intimidate all those who value the gift of self-expression. They show how the forces of censorship in our society use lumpen power to threaten this gift of free speech as they burn books, silence dissent, destroy works of art, and intimidate the artist, researcher, writer, film-maker, actor and free thinker.