I’m Banned Again in China

Back in 2012 a Chinese translation of my book Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic appeared.  Shortly after publication the Chinese government ordered the publisher not to distribute further copies.  About a year after that, the ban seems to have been lifted.

A Chinese contact tells me that the ban is again in force and that the book is again unavailable.

Some copies did circulate and there are a variety of interesting comments on Douban, a Chinese book site.

The Chinese government exerts substantial control over what can appear, both in print and on the Internet.  A reader of this blog informed me that copies of an atlas were seized from his school, since one of the maps depicted Taiwan in a different color than the People’s Republic of China. I was surprised that the book was published in China to begin with, given its suggestion that Marxism-Leninism (and by extension its Chinese variant) were comparable in some ways to Nazi Germany.

I’d welcome further information from any Chinese readers.