How appalling and terrifying to read, in your article on book bans in US schools and elsewhere, of Qin Shi Huang, the Chinese emperor who had scholars buried alive and books burned to control how history would remember him (‘It’s a culture war that’s totally out of control’: the authors whose books are being banned in US schools, 22 March).
Qin, of course, played an important part in the development of the Great Wall of China. He clearly wanted this seen as a rip-roaring success, especially after the long years to “get the wall done”. He obviously didn’t want a lot of pesky scholars pointing out that the wall was colossally expensive, had virtually no benefits and was an enormous impediment to trade.
The preoccupations and anxieties of the powerful have endured, but thankfully present-day leaders don’t quite have the same scope to control how their own histories are written.
Jamie Morris
Bromsgrove, Worcestershire
• Your article brought back memories of the mid-1970s when I was a school psychologist in West Virginia. New books were purchased every three years for use in the high schools. For the very first time books by several black authors had been included. In the Bible belt of America, this led to protests, and we were faced with aggressive protesters as we arrived for work. I even found a bullet hole in my office window. My children were at a progressive school and teachers asked them to bring a book to read which had been read by a parent. My boys fancied A Clockwork Orange, which I declined to read!
Margaret Hayward
West Bay, Dorset
• Anyone interested in reading further about banned and destroyed books might appreciate Richard Ovenden’s Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack. He takes the reader from broken clay tablets and burned papyrus to today in an accessible and engaging way.
Kris Felton
Longworth, Oxfordshire
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