Censorship is one of the gauges of civilization, and it has always aroused men's most passionate and partisan feelings. The issues involved exploded into the modern world with John Milton's in 1644, and have become ever more pressing as our world has grown smaller and smaller. This anthology is therefore of urgent relevance to our own lives and times. Milton's thesis rests upon the issue of religious belief, and it introduces the book's first part, "Censorship and Belief." With "Censorship and Fact," the book moves to the conflict of the interests of science and freedom of speech with those of the state. In "Censorship and the Imagination," the issue turns on the question of what art is and how it functions in society. And, finally, comes "Self-Censorship," with Dostoievsky and Freud opening up that modern vista where neurosis and politics meet.