Book Burning and Censorship

Johannes Gutenberg had also published a Bible - the first book ever printed with movable type in the Western World - on his printing press.

Gutenberg's heavily illustrated Bible was both beautiful and expensive.  It cost about three year's pay for an average clerk.

Gutenberg's achievement changed the world.  As Michael Inman, the curator of rare books at New York Public Library, puts it:

The mass printing of identical texts, which hadn't really been possible before Gutenberg, greatly facilitated the spread of knowledge. Over a period of several hundred years, language - spelling and grammar - was gradually codified. Literacy rates went up. More and more people were reading the same texts and discussing or debating the same ideas. This improvement in communication was one of the most important outcomes of printing.

The Gutenberg Bible was not burned because it was printed in Latin, not in the vernacular (everyday language of people).

Book burning was not unique to Europe during the Middle Ages. As missionaries ventured to the "New World," they exported theological correctness. Their zeal in converting others helped to destroy important aspects of ancient cultures - like the Mayans.